ICYMI: after three years of touring to support their last release, the #2 Billboard charting The Peace and the Panic, Welsh pop punk band Neck Deep have finally announced their long-awaited fourth album. The record, titled All Distortions Are Intentional, invites fans (whether brand-new or dedicated) into Sonderland, a world that makes Alice's Wonderland look tame. The entire concept revolves around the word sonder, which singer Ben Barlow explains as “that strange existential realization that you are not the entire world. Everyone around you feels and lives the same way that you do. You’re just an extra in their story.”
The album is due out July 24th via Hopeless Records, and is available for preorder now.
The first single off of their album, "Lowlife," can be streamed on all platforms, and it's definitely a much different direction than Neck Deep have ever dare to venture before. It's very reminiscient of early 2000s pop punk - think LIT, New Found Glory, and Sum 41-inspired. It's as catchy as any of their singles combined. It's about sonder itself, almost like Barlow could have been standing in front of a mirror when he wrote it, telling himself, "Oh well, oh well / You're a normie / So fucking boring / Maybe I'll see you in hell / Mr."I'm so important."
"Lowlife" is everything the world needs from pop punk in 2020, but I'm not sure they know it yet. You can watch the video (produced by YHELLOW), which introduces fans to the protagonist of Sonderland itself, Jeff, and Alice, the love of his life, below, and decide for yourself whether or not I'm right: