Album review: Boston Manor – Sundiver

Standing apart from the crowd isn’t an easy or pleasant thing to do. Quite often, though, it’s a necessity. If you’re Boston Manor, you’ve got five guys dismissive of expectation or formula that are instead hellbent on coalescing sounds and genres – and it’s no easy thing to bring everything together and make it sound whole.

But make it sound whole Boston Manor most definitely have. After 2020’s brilliant but unfortunately-timed GLUE and 2022’s dark and deep-digging Datura, Boston Manor have arguably got little to prove, but they evidently think otherwise. They’ve never sounded as cohesive, as unique and as stubbornly characterful as they do on Sundiver.

Opener Datura (Dawn) is the shady drawbridge that offers us transit from their last album, before Container chucks in choppy guitar licks and a bouncing ball of a chorus. Sliding Doors jumps back and forth, subtle when it must be, Henry Cox going a bit Chino on us before opening his lungs in massive, cathartic showdown. Even that’s dwarfed by HEAT ME UP, one of those songs so tuneful that even your gran will dig it. Everything Boston Manor do well, they do to the max on this surging celebration of a song.

We are of course just getting started. Elsewhere you’ve got the funky, sun-drenched Horses In A Dream, and the cleverly built and typically emotive Why I Sleep. Even more interesting is the carefully managed tension that makes Fornix so compelling, and stealthy keyboards – a subtle presence on many of the tracks – that appear towards Dissolve’s climax. If there’s a single disappointment it’s the fact that closer DC Mini features metalcore head-crackers Heriot, a prospect that prepares you for a riot that never actually breaks out.

No matter, with touchstones as disparate as Deftones and Depeche Mode, and crucially the ability to cook them all up into something that tastes good, there’s no route map Boston Manor can’t navigate.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Bring Me The Horizon, Starset, You Me At Six

Sundiver is due out on September 6 via SharpTone