Neck Deep, When You Know
Hopeless Records

Neck Deep’s upcoming album, All Distortions Are Intentional, is a conceptual web of stories – which is why it’s especially exciting when they release new singles. They’re new puzzle pieces of the world they’re creating, and we’re so immersed we can hardly wait to put it together.

Lowlife introduced the character of Jett to us as an outsider in the classic pop-punk sense – we’re all outsiders too. When You Know is the portion of the story where we get to watch Jett realise his feelings for Alice (in Sonderland), and the outsider begins to feel a part of something – always a poignant moment, and Neck Deep have crafted the perfect soundtrack for it.

The instrumentals are a combination of acoustic and electric guitars, ensuring that there’s enough hype and enough heart too. Reminiscent of the irresistible appeal of In Bloom, the chorus is an endearing invitation to join in, easy to pick up and sing along straight away. The upbeat, cheery vibe of the song along with lyrics about flowers and sunshine could so easily sound twee, but of course, Neck Deep don’t fall into this trap. Barlow’s heartwarmingly genuine delivery draws you into the world the track occupies, with simple lyrical gems like “it feels so good when you know, when you know”, implying the adage “when you know, you know” and making it impossible to avoid getting invested in the relationship of their characters.

Neck Deep have never gone so abstract before, but if Lowlife and When You Know are anything to go by, they’ve seamlessly transferred their skills from writing stingingly relatable pop-punk tunes into spinning elaborate, absorbing fictional worlds. Now we just have to anxiously await the next chapter.

All Distortions Are Intentional is out July 24th.