Boston Manor frontman Henry Cox guides us track by track through their new album ‘Sundiver’, out now via SharpTone Records.

Datura Dawn

This song was the last song we recorded for Sundiver. We wrote the idea for this during the ‘Datura’ sessions and wanted to write something that lyrically flipped the into to that album. It follows the same rhyming structure. This song was recorded in C-major which is one of the happiest keys in music whilst ‘Datura Dusk’ was recorded in D-Minor aka the saddest key.

Container

This song probably had the most versions and felt like we were carefully sculpting throughout the entire process. We also wanted ‘Datura’ to flow directly into ‘Container mirroring’ the beginning of the previous record ‘Datura’. Maybe the hardest song to get right, it either sounded too low key or way too “big”, a reoccurring issue when making this record.

Sliding Doors

A real melting pot of a lot of influences from our favourite rock, punk and metal bands growing up. This song is about how even small changes can cascade into a huge difference in outcome. The heaviest song we’ve ever written, we’ve dipped our toes in the water with heavier stuff before, but honestly I’m surprised it’s taken us this long to go all in. Super fun song to make.

HEAT ME UP

I love how the guitars in the verses sound like warm water running through the song. Musically, this song was inspired by The Cardigans song ‘Erase / Rewind’. We’re a big fan of the repetitive cyclic nature of choruses from the late 90s where you can almost get lost in a trance. We were chasing this “bright/positive” sound without trying to make it sound “happy” I think this was the first time we managed it.

Horses In A Dream

We really wanted to achieve a dark/vibey Portishead-esque sound. A bit of a different vibe for Boston Manor but I’d like to revisit the triphop thing more in the future.

Morning Star

We really wanted to write something that you could truly lose yourself in. Something that felt like it surrounded you like a positive energy and beautiful rays of light. A lot of what you hear was taken directly from our demos. The song came together quite quickly, the drum programming taking the longest to get right. The breakbeat is constantly changing which means you don’t really have an anchor point in the song, it just feels like it’s cycling endlessly.

Why I Sleep

We rewrote much of this one in our airBnB 10 minutes away from the studio at night time. It was such a wonderful experience with all of us crowded around a laptop and all adding to the song bit by bit. We’d been working on a totally different  version of the song for days and it just wasn’t working, we were kind of in free flow state in that evening session & it came together super quickly. Buzzing to play this live.

Fornix

A lot of the guitar sounds on ‘Fornix’ really dictated how we really wanted the entire record to sound. It was an important starting point for us and almost a blueprint on how we wanted the record to sound over all. The first song we wrote for the album, lyrically it serves as a bit of a mission statement and reflects all the themes of the record neatly.

Dissolve

A lot of 00s pop energy slammed together with some grunge and shoegaze. Garbage was a big influence on this track. There is also a hidden Easter egg at the end of the track for people to find.

What is taken, will never be lost

Much of this song was written in the studio. We broke up into two groups and wrote and recorded our parts. Larry really helped us find and develop the vibe for this one. It almost reminds me of a dark Justin Timberlake song. Most of what you hear in the track is from that original writing session. Everything just sounded perfect and finished to us so we never re-recorded it.

DC mini

I spent most of the year listening to a lot of modern black metal and shoegaze bands such as Alcest, Deafheaven, Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine. It was really cool to inject some of those influences into this song and have Debbie from Heriot scream/sing on the track. We don’t regularly have features on our records unless it really makes sense for the song. Debbie’s vocals are a perfect fit for what we wanted to achieve with ‘DC Mini’. We still don’t know what her lyrics are to this day and we don’t want to know. It’s nice to have a bit of mystery sometimes you know?