Project Description

BOSTON MANOR

‘Welcome To The Neighbourhood’

(Album Review)

Reviewer: Cassandra Thomson
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“People from here never leave, I’ve seen it happen next to me. Nothing in life comes for free. Welcome to the neighbourhood… If you could leave, you would…” – Welcome To The Neighbourhood

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“Your tunnel vision is killing me slowly. Baby, I’m dreaming and everyone’s lonely. We’re still headed for the edge…” – Tunnel Vision

I’ll never say sorry, ‘cause I’ll never be free. You float like a butterfly, you sting like a bee. You’re everywhere I go, you’re always watching me. Get the hell out of my head… I’ll never be free…” – Bad Machine

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Welcome To The Neighbourhood is the sophomore album released by British pop-punk five piece, Boston Manor. Formed in 2013, Boston Manor are Henry Cox on vocals, Ash Wilson on Guitar, Mike Cunniff on Guitar, Dan Cunniff on Bass and Jordan Pugh on Drums.

Released September 7 via Pure Noise Records/Sony Music Australia, Welcome To The Neighbourhood follows the announcement and confirmation that Boston Manor will be joining the Good Things Festival this December in Australia. Produced by Mike Sapone (Taking Back Sunday, Mayday Parade), Welcome To The Neighbourhood was written within the confines of the band’s hometown Blackpool, in which they use as a physical but fictionalised location to really place and ground an unapologetic spotlight on the issues wider society has created, and the fears that are attached so strongly via the perspective of vocalist Henry Cox, and their everyday life through a matured voice and heavy pop-punk sound.

Feeling trapped, stuck in a cycle you cannot get out of, poverty, drug addiction and worries for the future – Henry Cox and Boston Manor take an emotionally charged stab at society and the mess they have caused, Cox stating recently that

“it’s more of a stab at my generation…”, saying “my generation financially and culturally barren… too lazy and distracted and comfortable to do anything about it.”

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Check out the track list for
Boston Manor’s
Welcome To The Neighbourhood
below –

Welcome to The Neighbourhood
Flowers In Your Dustbin
Halo 
England’s Dreaming 
Funeral Party 
Digital Ghost
Tunnel Vision 
Bad Machine 
If I Can’t Have It No One Can
Hate You
FY1
Stick Up
The Day That I Ruined Your Life

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We all know I am about never giving away an entire album’s premise, but I can tell you this much… From the opening of the first track, titled Welcome To The Neighbourhood, you are immediately immersed into the fictionalised, broken down town of Blackpool, Boston Manor have created; full of dead ends, and no way out through the eerie, ghostly sounds of the synth, stomping backline and standout lyrics,

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“Welcome to the neighbourhood.
If you could leave, you would…”

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Flowers In Your Bustbin is a savage, emotionally charged, pure pop-punk track (right down to the breakdown and all…) about drug addiction, being an outcast in society without no place to call home thanks to the previous generation’s mistakes and the effect of technology and how living with our heads in a screen has made us complacent and unaware of the societal breakdown and issues around us.

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“If I’m a flower in your dustbin,
then you’re the pesticide on me…”

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Halo, the first single revealed from the album, is a track full of dark electronic production and melodic, punk-rock fullness to match the heavy lyrics Cox spurts about the vicious cycle of drug addiction, feeling trapped and unaware if there will ever be a way out.

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“I can see your halo fall, halo fall.
I can see your halo fall, ‘cause I had it,
then I lost it all… Just a quick fix,
then I’ll get clean…”

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Overall, Welcome To The Neighbourhood deals with hard hitting, emotional issues that society would much rather bypass, only to stick their heads in the sand. If anything positive could come from the conversation Cox and Boston Manor highlight in their album, it is that it’s time for our generation to wake up and smell the dying roses; it’s time we stand up and make a change, a difference in the world around us. If not for us, for our future generations before it’s too late.

If you weren’t a fan of Boston Manor before, you sure as hell will be one after one spin of this album. Welcome To The Neighbourhood is a mature, refreshing, realistic, in your face piece of musical art, living in a world of fantastical love songs and dramatic, hierarchal rap battles.

Welcome To The Neighbourhood, Boston Manor. Go check it out!

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Connect with BOSTON MANOR
@ OneBigLink

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