Ben Barlow doesn’t think every album is the best they’ve ever done. “I wouldn’t say that,” he shrugs. “But it’s up there.” He’s talking about Neck Deep’s new self-titled LP, a pop punk sledgehammer forged in frustration, recalibration, and one very uncomfortable diner booth in L.A.
“We had a particular meltdown,” Barlow recalls. “We were all sat outside just like, ‘What the fuck are we doing?’” Midway through recording with producers in Los Angeles, the band realized it just wasn’t clicking. The vibe was off. The sound wasn’t theirs. So they pulled the plug, went home to Wrexham, gutted their studio, and took over the album themselves. “It was a tough decision,” Barlow says. “But if we hadn’t, we’d be stuck with a record we don’t like.”
It was a gamble, sure. But also, very on-brand. “That’s what we did back in the day,” Barlow says. “When we’re left to our own devices, that’s when it feels like Neck Deep.”
The result is a no-bullshit blast of pop punk that veers from heartbreak anthems to political callouts without ever sounding like it's trying too hard. “We’ve never really tried to write an out-and-out pop punk record until this one,” Barlow admits. “This was the one to self-title. It felt right. We did it all ourselves, didn’t run it through anyone else’s filter.”
One of those filtered-but-not-filtered tracks is “Heartbreak of the Century,” which Barlow calls “a banger,” with all the cockeyed confidence of someone who knows he nailed it. He credits a half-remembered Beatles line from “Dig a Pony” as the subconscious seed for the chorus. “You got me good / you cut me deep” echoes Lennon’s phrasing but flips it into modern melodrama. Then there’s the music video, a gloriously low-budget, alien-abduction awards show fever dream. “We had like no money for it,” Barlow says. “So we just leaned into the cheapness.”
But Neck Deep isn’t just about alien skits and breakup hooks. On “We Need More Bricks,” the band turns up the volume on politics without drowning in it. “It’s the best political song we’ve ever written,” Barlow says. “I was raised in a political household. I follow it closely. It’s high on my list of daily freakouts.”
The song namechecks monarchy, immigration, protest laws, and war profiteering—but with a directness that feels more boots-on-the-ground than performative grandstanding. “All this corruption genuinely affects you,” he says. “Things could be better. That’s the point. Punk rock should always be political.”
Still, Neck Deep’s greatest strength might be their ability to flip between “We need more punks, we need more bricks,” and “Please take me with you, aliens.” There’s rage, yes. But also a very British sense of humor and existential absurdity. “Aliens just kinda slipped in there,” Barlow says, laughing. “We figured if we ever found out about them, it’d change everything. But now we know a little more and... nothing changed. Nothing happened.”
It’s a weird time to be in a pop punk band. But Barlow and company aren’t trying to please everyone. “We’re not going to be for everybody,” he shrugs. “But at least we’re writing songs that mean something.”
And that’s a hell of a lot more than some alien side dish.
Watch the interview and check out the video below.
