Review Summary: I swear to God, you saved me.
This is for the lost, downtrodden and rejects, and anybody looking for a purpose...
Everyone comes to a fork in the road at a certain point in life. It's when you cross the threshold from child into adult, at least in the eyes of everyone beyond your front door. You don't necessarily have to bid farewell to the textbooks and rigid schedules, but you do lose some of the structure and guidance. Everything is on you. If you miss a class, there's no longer an administrator calling your parents to find out where you are. We, of course, know this as the time when you graduate high school or conclude your secondary education and, in some cases, pursue further schooling for the purpose of getting a degree and entering the workforce. Many of us jump straight into that. Others hitch up and build families. In any case, you become familiar with wacky new concepts that, to this point in your existence, weren't part of the equation; taxes, voting, chronic back pain. These early steps at the beginning are so surreal and crucial. You're still largely in the headspace of a freewheeling youngster because, physically, you still are one. You've still yet to completely lose sight of the shore as you start your voyage into this miraculous adventure called life.
Sometimes you need a soundtrack, to help you process and filter the dizzying amount of different emotions, or just to help you bang your head, follow along with the beat, and put off that inevitable rite of passage for a moment longer.
Enter Welsh pop punk titans Neck Deep, and their second studio album
Life's Not Out To Get You, released on this day a decade ago.
When this album dropped on the 14th of August 2015 via Hopeless Records, I was less than three months removed from graduating high school. Looking back to revisit this iconic album, I can close my eyes and
taste the air from that period of time. The dog days of summer were humid, and the fall and winter were a bit warmer than usual, too. There wasn't a lot of snow or rain in those waning months of 2015, and I remember taking long walks and soaking up a little more sunshine than I might normally get to enjoy. After an attempt to go to college collapsed (f*ck you ITT Tech), I decided to find a job. I wouldn't land one until the following May, so this development did afford me a bit of a break, which I felt I deserved. I had busted my ass throughout my senior year to ensure I graduated with respectable marks, so I made sure to relax and decompress while I still could.
Life's Not Out To Get You was the album that blared through my earbuds through much of this juncture in my life. At 18, I was the
perfect age to consume and appreciate the album in its fullest capacity.
For Neck Deep themselves, the writing and recording sessions that brought their sophomore outing to life were a crossroads in their own right. After Hopeless Records picked them up for the release of their 2014 debut
Wishful Thinking, they promptly got to work on new material, and the band evolved from a hobby into a serious and concerted endeavor. Lead singer Ben Barlow dropped out of university, and the other members of the band quit their jobs. It was here they decided that Neck Deep was more than just an exercise in leisure; it was what they wanted to do with their lives. With the album conceived in the midst of the 'defend pop punk' movement, which followed a rapid commercial decline for the genre, Neck Deep set out to make an album that would cement their legacy. By all accounts, that's exactly what they did.
Life's Not Out To Get You is an album of, by and for the misunderstood. When the volcanic opening romp "Citizens of Earth" gets going, it's evident that Barlow and company are wise beyond their years. They're still young, but they're sure of themselves. You can almost hear the ***-eating grin on Ben's face when he sneers, 'every earthquake starts with a little shake,' perhaps speaking to his own emotions about acknowledging that the sun will soon set on his youth and that he needs to get ready. But then we oscillate to "Threat Level Midnight" hot on its heels where Ben just as brilliantly hints at an understated anxiety about the dilemma, and seems eager to put reality on the back-burner for
just a moment. On the soaring and anthemic "Can't Kick Up the Roots," which is fueled by Lloyd Robert's enthralling riffs and Fil Thorpe-Evans' glistening harmonies, the band pays homage to their Wrexham home, playfully bemoaning what a dump it is, but loving it to pieces all the same; "Yeah, this place is such a shipwreck, but this shipwreck, it is mine," Ben thankfully remarks.
Given the youthful disposition of the band, there are accordingly a sizable mix of feelings and sensations that the band toys with on this album. One that manages to account for most of the album's heart and soul is that of optimism. This is best conveyed on the purposeful "Gold Steps," the effective title track of the whole enterprise ("Life's not out to get you, despite the things you've been through"), where Neck Deep again contend with the uncertainty of the future, but nonetheless soldier on with clenched fists and heads held high. "Someday you will stand above your demons," they encourage the listener. Surprisingly, there's few moments that ostensibly allude to love or romantic relationships. "Kali Ma" and "Lime St." come to mind as ones that fit the bill. On the latter track, buoyed by more sweet riffs from Roberts and some of Dani Washington's coolest drum fills on the album, Ben seems to be contemplating if he should part ways amicably, but still makes sure to express gratitude; "I swear to God you saved me," he exhales, perhaps putting more stock into the courtship than is really warranted, but you can't blame him. The dude is young and is doing the best he can.
Perfectly juxtaposed with "Lime St." is one of the album's standout tracks, "Serpents." Appropriately biting and scathing given the song's title and lyrics, this blistering jaunt serves as a cautionary tale to the listener, about those devils in disguise we all encounter. 'She sleeps beneath the surface,' Ben warns. As we progress, he takes note of how good the muse made him feel, in spite of the new knowledge that she's bad news for him. Just when you think it must take a lot to
really break Ben's heart, you get walloped in the face with "December," easily the album's most somber and crestfallen moment. In what has grown into one of Neck Deep's signature songs, Ben laments a lost love with some of the most poignant imagery and raw emotion in a song of this kind that this genre has
ever produced. Stripping things back to just acoustic guitars, wintery keys and swelling string arrangements, Ben bids adieu to his former flame, and as is almost his trademark, there's a subtle facetious and waggish nature to the goodbye, suggesting he's not saying with it his chest because he's still so torn up about it. 'I hope you get your ballroom floor, your perfect house with rose red doors,' he accedes. What makes this track special is how Ben and the group can take simple-reading passages and elevate them with a palpable degree with humanity. When he whimpers, "pain is never permanent but tonight it's killing me," it hits
so f*cking hard. He knows that
eventually, he'll get over it, but in this moment, all he can reasonably do is stool in the anguish.
Thankfully, we the listeners don't have to wallow with Ben for very long. As we reach the last quarter of the album, we return to the persistent sense of hopefulness that colors so much of this record. When "Smooth Seas Don't Make Good Sailors" lets rip, Ben seems to be seriously grappling with a sense of finality ("could this finally be the end?"). It feels like the sun is rising on a new day and a new chapter for him, but he once again seems prepared and confident. "There will come a time when you face your life. Don't let it twist and tear you up inside," he reminds us. From there, we nestle into one of the album's most captivating tracks, "I Hope This Comes Back To Haunt You." Though it's the penultimate offering on
Life's Not Out To Get You, I think it captures the central theme of the album best and in a way that will send the listener off in the best way when all is said and done. While the song glides in by way of Ben giving another middle finger to whatever ***bag did him wrong, it soon leads into one of the most compelling and empowering stanzas on the entire album, with the band emphatically repeating:
Wake up, the world seems bright out today,
Life goes on, and things they change.
Hands up if you've been left bruised and broken,
Say "I'll be ok, I'll be ok".
"Rock Bottom" closes the album, and while parts of its main melody seem to explicitly copy and paste that of earlier track "The Beach Is For Lovers"," it does a solid job of bringing us to our curtain call in a way that's less significant, but still fun and energetic. For as much as you can read into most of the album's lyrics, they're also fun to just jam the f*ck out to, and this one serves that purpose just as well. And that's
Life's Not Out To Get You, anything but a sophomore slump from your favorite generic pop punk band.
Life's Not Out To Get You is a coming of age story, and one that still means so much to me. I found myself in so many of these songs when I listened for the first time. Ten years later, I still do. I can still look in the mirror and see the naive and hopeful 18-year-old I used to be. Or at least, I can still vividly recall what it was like to be him. I wish I could sit across from him, give him a fist bump and tell him it's all going to be okay, that there will be storms, but they end. They
always do. In the meantime, I want him to put the ear buds back in and drift away to the stillness and comfort this album provided to him at a time when he
really needed it. A decade on, it still resonates. Even as adults, we deal with betrayal and uncertainty. And it's important to never completely lose your childhood eyes, and to hold onto the belief that there's a light at the end of every tunnel.
Life's Not Out To Get You is that eternal reminder to grab life by the wrist and jump, but to also have fun while you can. This is the soundtrack to finding yourself, finding your footing as you begin the long and arduous trek through all that life has to offer. This is for the lost, downtrodden and rejects, and anybody looking for a purpose.
Ten years ago, a group of spunky upstarts from northern Wales took me on one of the greatest and most exhilarating musical rides of my life.
Since then, I haven't been the same.
Life's Not Out To Get You is a stone-cold
classic.
