Boston Manor
Welcome to the Neighbourhood

We return to the manor and visit the neighbourhood with them, Blackpool is the Neighbourhood that British pop punkers Boston Manor are visiting in this their second album. An album with a pretty boring cover, but an album I was somewhat curious about considering that I found the first one good but could have used a bit more fresh ideas. Now they are painting a bleak image of the town of Blackpool that has seen a decline in fortunes since tourists turned to other nations instead of the domestic spots – this has led to some less good thing according to the material I read about the album and what the band members state. So how about this album then, is it a great pop punk album with a bleak outlook on life or is it something more interesting?

Edgy starting track, sort of haunting with a very simple structure and chorus is what meets when first taking to the album, an easy track to like. And it is between those kind of haunting slower tracks and more straightforward traditional songs with catchy choruses and energy – kind of average vocalist for the genre I think. It is an album with good production, I think the sound is modern and good and they have taken a step forwards compared with the debut both in terms of sound and musical content, as this album is more diverse than the previous one. Still, it isn’t that varied and while it only plays 44 minutes it could have been a bit shorter as there are many similar songs between the opener and end, and I think this album can do without some of those tracks. But they are probably part of the story so I am not sure the band ever thought about making the album a bit more compressed and dynamic, as they would have by shortening it by ten minutes or something in that region.

Elegant and great opening and ending tracks of this album, those tracks are really great and give the album a really strong as well as positive frame. But besides them there isn’t much that makes a strong and lasting impression, take the video track Halo as an example of a pretty boring track that fills this album. Good start and good finish but the rest is very average making the album feel somewhere in that region as well. There are many things I feel could have been done better, they could clearly have murdered some darlings and they could have dared to think a bit more outside that famous box because when I try to summarise it all I find that I don’t really think that Boston Manor offer anything that feels really fresh. Those who like what they did before will probably like this one as well but I will not stretch as far as the promo people claiming that it surely is one of the best albums of the year – I don’t think so, it is good but not that good.

Don’t read too much into a slightly negative tone, I was hoping for something more and believe that Boston Manor really has more to offer. This is a very solid effort that should appeal to the fans of the pop punk music, the songs are catchy and the end as well as the beginning is quite special.

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