“We can’t wait for people to hear this new version of ‘Never Happy [Ever After]’ … This may be one of the most special records to us that we’ve ever made.”
On Thursday, April 17, British rock band As It Is returned to action with the release of “Never Happy Ever After X” (NHEAX), the tenth anniversary remake of their debut album “Never Happy Ever After.” The album marks the end of the band’s year-long hiatus, where founding members guitarist Benjamin Biss, bassist Alistair Testo and drummer Patrick Foley have returned alongside vocalist Patty Walters after having exited the band’s lineup over the years.
“NHEAX” features the same songs as the original album, but re-recorded to fit the band’s more mature sound, alongside featuring artists that have a meaningful connection to the band. However, while the lyrical content has remained the same, the context and meaning behind the lyrics have changed. Whereas the original album was about struggling with self-worth, depression and the fear of what the future holds, “NHEAX” is about overcoming those struggles, celebrating how much they have grown and reflecting on the past.
“As It Is has always embraced those feelings, and I think the biggest journey of these recent years has been finding happiness both in and out of the band,” Walters said in an interview with Kerrang! Magazine.

The Growth of As It Is

As It Is started with all the band members wanting to make music that was important to them. Over their career, they created much more grandiose stories and found ways to tell those stories with more lyrical and sonic depth. This culminated with their third studio album, “The Great Depression,” which tells the story of a man finding himself face to face with death, confronting topics regarding mental health and illnesses, societal pressures and how those two ideas coexist.
When deciding to revisit “Never Happy Ever After,” they decided to mix the sound that they crafted during their later works with the more straightforward lyrics from the original album. This blend of the band’s storytelling not only makes “NHEAX” a refreshing take on these songs but also emphasizes what made those songs great in the first place.
“The thing that felt so authentic about celebrating the nostalgia of [‘Never Happy Ever After’] is that the future of the band was so uncertain,” Walters said in an interview with Rock Sound. “Fast forward to 2024, now 2025, and the band is back and in a sense more alive than it’s been in a very, very long time.”

My Connection to As It Is

When As It Is released their previous album “I Went to Hell and Back” on Feb. 4, 2022, I had just started my second semester of college. I was at one of the lowest points in my life and could not see a way out of it. However, “I Went to Hell and Back” is what dragged me out from those depths; it gave me something to sing and scream and release the negative emotions I was feeling. It gave me hope.
Over three years later, As It Is decides to release another album just when I need it. I am mere weeks away from graduating and being able to celebrate my accomplishments over the past few years. “I Went to Hell and Back” helped keep me motivated and get to this point, and now that I am here, I have “NHEAX” to help me celebrate how much I’ve grown and look back on the progress I have made.
“I think the biggest thing that it reminded us of, and made abundantly clear, is that I’ve never felt that art is more important,” Walters said with Rock Sound. “I didn’t always see the importance or the value in being a musician and what it was giving to other people.”

Uniqueness of “NHEAX”

Something special that As It Is decided to do for this album was to have at least one feature on every song. These features ranged from artists that inspired them to make these songs in the first place such as Kellin Quinn (Sleeping with Sirens) and Dave Baksh (Sum-41), artists that the band befriended such as Alex Costello (Roam) and Lucas Woodland (Holding Absence) and artists that they themselves influenced such as Noah Adams (Noahfinnce) and Rae Brazill (Artio). These collaborators not only bring a new sound to the songs that they work on, but also make the album as a whole a celebration of As It Is’ career with and by the people closest to them.
A lot of the songs on the album work incredibly well, not just as their original versions, but as retrospections of what the band was feeling and going through during the creation of the first “Never Happy Ever After.” “Speak Soft” becomes a story of finding self-worth and finding a reason to stick around. “My Oceans Were Lakes” takes the idea of the song, realizing that your problems are not as big as you think they are, and cranks it up to looking back at how small those problems became as you have grown.
“I only want to create music that I feel really deeply connected to and proud of,” Walters said with Rock Sound. “So what I’m saying is that anything we do next, if I can be this proud of it 10 years after we share it with the world, that is maybe the only thing I care about anymore.”

“NHEAX” is a celebration of everything that As It Is has accomplished over their career, but it can also be a reminder to all of us to celebrate how far we have come. I encourage everybody reading this to find something to celebrate your own growth, because we do not do it enough. While we may not be able to find a perfect ending, we can at least find a happy one, and I hope you can find something to lead you to that happy ending like As It Is has done for me.