Hey friends! This week I want to talk about one of my favorite up-and-coming bands: Neck Deep.

Neck Deep is a pop punk band from Wales and they have been all over the scene lately. They’ve played countless music festivals this year, had an almost sold out world tour, were featured as the cover artist for Alternative Press magazine and have even more festivals lined up for the coming months.

They also recently released a music video for their song “Serpents” off their newest album Life’s Not Out To Get You. This music video is what I want to focus on.

Neck Deep is no stranger to music videos. They’ve put out a good number of them, especially considering the fact that they’re a fairly new band. However, their music videos up till now have all looked very similar to one another. They all feature the band playing the music either onstage or in random places on the street and they don’t have much to do with the songs that accompanies them.

This new music video is a bit different, which I’m happy to see. It still features the band playing the song but this time they managed to incorporate some awesome motion graphics and other cool effects to tie in the message of the song. Here’s the link to the video so you can see for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReXRXxbeZ_I.

What do you think? Do music videos always have to relate to the song?

I know it’s been a while since I posted since I was away on spring break, but I have some music news! On Sunday night, I shot photography at the X Ambassadors concert at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC, and it was the perfect end to a perfect spring break.

You may have heard X Ambassadors’ newest single “Renegades” all over the radio recently. I like the song, but it’s not representative of their best work, in my opinion. I was thoroughly surprised by the amount of energy X Ambassadors had on stage right off the bat. They were jumping all over the place, the lights were crazy, and they even brought out the fog machine. I hadn’t listened to much of their music before going to the show but the songs I had heard were fairly tame so I expected a fairly tame concert experience. They blew my expectations out of the water in the first 5 seconds.

Shooting them was so much fun. Both of their openers were good but they kind of stood around onstage and it was hard to get new shots of them. X Ambassadors, on the other hand, never stood still. Shooting them was a challenge and I was getting new material in each shot, which is so exciting to me.

The lead singer was constantly running to a different part of the stage, standing on speakers, connecting with the audience in a way that I’ve only seen a few people do before. He was standing on the barricades and engaging every single person in the songs. You could see his passion for the music he was playing and it was inspiring.

Hearing the music live has also convinced me to buy the album! I enjoyed the songs they were playing even though it was my first time hearing most of it. Their finale was amazing and they did a 3-song encore, including the song “Unconsolable” which is one of my favorites.

If you’re interested, check out my photo gallery here.

Until next time!