Life's Not Out To Get You (studio album) by Neck Deep

Pop punk is a genre that is rife with nostalgia. If you invoke the sound of a popular, well known artist in the genre, you will have dozens of people flocking to you about to hail you as the next big thing. In some cases, you may just become the next big thing within the genre, or you'll at least be known for a while before being forgotten and becoming irrelevant.

Neck Deep might as well be the poster child for this phenomenon within pop punk. Starting off as The Story So Far clone act, before settling into a sound that's a cross between A Day To Remember and New Found Glory, Neck Deep are essentially a tribute act for a genre, that was popular a decade ago (at this point). They managed to get a lot of success due to their relentless touring in addition to their evocation of two massively popular acts within pop punk, but it would be unwise to downplay the role of their influences contributing to their massive following.

Life's not Out To Get You differentiates itself from its predecessor, by its mimicry of Sum 41 in addition to the usual A Day To Remember and New Found Glory plagiarism. For instance, opener "Citizens Of Earth" is a ripoff of Sum 41's Nothing On My Back down to its intro riff and "Threat Level Midnight" is a ripoff of Sum 41's "Machine Gun". The guitar riffs and leads are boring, the bass playing is decent, but is seldom highlighted in the mix or is playing root notes and the drumming is nothing to be impressed by. The vocals are auto-tuned to hell, most noticeable whenever Barlow harmonizes with Fil Thorpe Evans or himself, but they're largely tolerable.

The lyrics, however, are the worst aspect of the record, either based around relationship woes or life being terrible, with the only exceptions being the aforementioned "Citizens Of Earth" which consists of social commentary lacking in any self-awareness and "Gold Steps" which is a generic pep talk song.

The album is produced and mixed professionally and sounds clear and crisp, but since the music is generic, it doesn't do the record any favors and just highlights how hollow and empty everything on the album is.

Neck Deep is the most blatant example of how nostalgia makes everyone look over everything else in an artist in favor of memories of good times that don't exist. Much like the early 2000s when pop punk broke out in the mainstream.

From elo269megv 11/26/2018 02:30

Good blend of emo and pop punk. Some great guitar riffs coupled with solid lyrics and sing/shout vocal delivery.

Highlights: Citizens of Earth, Gold Steps, Beach is For Lovers, December, I Hope This Comes Back To Haunt You

Superb quality explodes out of this album i'm stunned it hasn't received more atttention it's easily on par with The Wonder Years recent work.

From xMUSICSNOBx 09/20/2015 06:08

This album was written from the heart, you can tell. I really enjoyed it. Guitar work is superb, drums aren't quite as good as they were on 'Wishful Thinking' but you dont even notice because the rest of the instrumentalist really stepped it up. Superb lyricism, all around great record. One of my favorites to come out this year.