Introduced on stage by Jonny Boucher of suicide prevention charity Hope for the Day with roaring sentiments including “We gotta get through this shit together!”, Welsh pop-punk fivesome Neck Deep seem well attuned to the significance their music can have on young fans (some of whom may still be grappling with the death of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington).
The Wrexham band’s rise has been precipitous – their third album The Peace and the Panic went Top 5 in the UK and the US – yet has probably gone undetected by anyone for whom Blink-182’s mainstream breakout was the last they heard of the genre. Commanding an absurdly over-the-top stage set that looks like something out of a skate video thanks to its steep ramps, Neck Deep don’t develop punk-pop’s narrow tropes much at all, but they do exhibit a confident mastery of them.
Frontman Ben Barlow sings earnestly about old girlfriends, stifling small-town angst, lost loved ones and the world going up in flames, in a heavily mannered, nasal way that’s so Americanised he seems unsure which accent to use when he speaks between songs. When they aren’t doing synchronised power slides down the stage ramps during Gold Steps, guitarists Matt West and Sam Bowden perform whirlwind spins on the spot that must have taken as much practice in front of the mirror as their churning power chords and needling lead lines. Drummer Dani Washington works his kit with the racing rhythmic thwack of a boxer hammering a speedball during the galloping Motion Sickness.
Patently derivative as Neck Deep’s music may be, it’s abundantly clear – as hundreds of bodies pitch and roll together in a moshing sea of abandon down the front – that it really does matter an awful lot to some. It’s not hard to appreciate why. Neck Deep are both emosh dudes who totally get your pain – case in point being their biggest hit, acoustic power ballad A Part of Me – and allow for simple catharsis and escapism on songs like the bouncing Can’t Kick Up the Roots. Where Do We Go When We Go sends crowdsurfing bodies practically raining over the crash barriers into the arms of security staff at the end.
Even if Neck Deep’s rise only ends up lasting as long as their young fans’ growing pains, to have inspired this much devotion is already no mean feat.
• At UEA LCR Norwich, 11 October. Box office: 01603 508050. At O2 Academy Brixton, London, 13 October. Box office: 020-7771 3000. Then on UK and European tour.
• In the UK the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.
