BOSTON MANOR - DATURA
Credit: Theodore Swaddling
Consisting of vocalist Henry Cox, lead guitarist Mike Cunniff, rhythm guitarist Ash Wilson, bassist Dan Cunniff and drummer Jordan Pugh - the five-piece band Boston Manor have started to thematically create a name for themselves in the most recent years through albums and EPs.
Their 2018 album, Welcome To The Neighborhood set the listener in a fictional state of the band's hometown, Blackpool in Lancashire, England. 2020’s GLUE shows a broken and chaotic world, but it was filtered through Cox’s eyes. Their most previous work, Desperate Times, Desperate Pleasures, introduced a sound and feeling of something churning and unsettling.
Their newest set of songs place you in between the faint light of dusk and dawn, giving off the feeling of something more sinister lurking in the shadows. Boston Manor’s newest seven track, full-length album Datura expands on their previous sound and begins to create a new thematic concept that we have not seen from them before.
Immediately opening the album you are met with ' ‘Datura (dusk)’ ' that has a consecutive sense of eeriness, which seems to engulf you and bring you in for the ride. The raspy vocals and heavy bass reinforce the feeling of something lurking behind. Smoothly transitioning into ‘Floodlights On The Square’, you shift to a more upbeat and intense track. Although the overall beat and sound presents itself as happy and uplifting, the darkness and uncanny feeling is still felt once the track is over.
The darkness seems to lift with the next track ‘Foxglove’ , but you’d be mistaken! ‘Foxglove’ gives a more cyber and crunchy feel, but it shows how darkness can follow you and be around even though things seem okay.
‘Passenger’ follows and hits you with a punch of intense, uninhibited hopefulness to bring you out of the darkness, but at the expense of what may be an emotional relapse back into the darkness. It explains how the darkness is bigger than them and they are just the “passenger driving alone”. Flowing into ‘Crocus’ it gives a similar feeling to the previous track- the feeling of hope, but then the inevitable downfall.
Cyber-punk ‘Shelter From The Rain’ might seem like an outlier compared to the other tracks, but it’s a vital component of Datura. It’s a complete instrumental track with small segments of voices that transitions the album into the light or the faint light you see at dawn, giving pure bliss to the listener, but it does seem like a different approach that we have not seen from the band.
Closing out the album is love song and anthem of hope, ‘Inertia’. You are given soft synthetic sounds accompanied by the raw and impassioned vocals. Not only does it tug on the heartstrings, but as you think the song has ended, a chaotic sound of supernatural beings begin to gradually take over the sound. It completely stops and you are left with the birds at dawn. Did they make it out of the darkness or is the cycle just restarting?
Overall Boston Manor’s newest album Datura was very well written and put together. The metaphorical background gives the album the ability to be enjoyed an listened to all the way through or just track by track.
Cimone Milner
★★★★★