Album Review: Boston Manor’s ‘Welcome to the Neighborhood’

By Chyrisse Tabone, Rock At Night Tampa

Album Review:   Boston Manor’s Welcome to the Neighborhood-Label-Pure Noise Records-Release date September 7, 2018

Rock At Night gave Boston Manor’s second studio album Welcome to the Neighborhood a listen and boy, it is really raw and gritty!  The Blackpool band is really hitting a chord by singing about the seedy side and hopelessness of life for the Millennials.  Lead vocalist Henry Cox says, “In the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, Blackpool was this booming town. It was a holiday destination, a place where you can go to forget all your troubles and now things here are just so fucked up–there are huge drug problems and a 40 per cent unemployment rate in the winter. It was once this beautiful thing and it’s become a little bit broken.”

Songs like “Halo” describe the dark, grungy details of a junkie shooting up and “Stick Up” describes a gun robbery.  “Welcome to the Neighborhood”, with its synths and hip-hop influences, describes the seedy underbelly of a neighborhood.  Again, “Flowers” delivers in a hard-driving rock fashion and uses metaphors of disillusionment and hopelessness of life today for young people.  More social commentary ensues with dark and grungy “England’s Dreaming” and “Funeral Party”.  “Tunnel Vision” and “If I Can’t Have It No One Can” are delivered in a fast-paced, pop-punk fashion. Alt rock songs “Hate You” and “The Day I Ruined Your Life” carry on the album’s darkness  theme into social commentary about relationships.

Stand-outs in the album are “Welcome to the Neighborhood” and “Bad Machine”, which starts with an acoustic guitar and then melds into a hard-driving, infectious, and dark wonder.   I love this album!  It has all the raw richness of post-punk music but with a grungy alt-rock feel.  The band is going to be on tour soon in the US this fall alongside REAL FRIENDS, GRAYSCALE, and EAT YOUR HEART OUT between October 17 and November 25.  Check out this album!

THE BAND: Henry Cox (Vocals), Mike Cunniff (Guitar), Ash Wilson (Guitar), Can Cunniff (Bass), and Jordan Pugh (Drums)

 

TRACK LIST

Welcome to the Neighborhood

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 I Ruined Your Life

 

 

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Chyrisse Tabone, Ph.D.
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