EP REVIEW: Desperate Times, Desperate Pleasures – Boston Manor
An ‘outrageous fortune’ is a phrase that comes from William Shakespeare. It refers to when our best-laid plans are thrown into disarray by a malevolent confluence of events. On their new EP, Blackpool-born BOSTON MANOR‘s argue that the past 18 months have been an ‘outrageous fortune’ as the pandemic has thrown our lives into chaos. After their tour got cancelled, the band fell into a funk, with lead singer Henry Cox describing 2020 as a “write-off“. However, giving up was never really on BOSTON MANOR‘s agenda, nor has it been since their 2013 formation.
Desperate Times, Desperate Pleasures covers this dark time for the band, who didn’t feel quite ready to release another 12-track album. This EP goes into some heavy topics through the lyrics, but there is always a bleak humour to them, with Cox channelling his frustrations at lockdown and the state of the world throughout.
Carbon Mono is an aggressive opener. It’s evident here that the band are fully embracing their heavier side which was first seen on last year’s Glue. There are even distorted electronic sounds and heavy metal screams. The band are shedding their pop-punk skin for a new genre-less one. It suits them well. After this, Algorithm takes the form of a more straight-up pop-punk song. However, this is not a bad thing, and it makes sense as the song before was more experimental. Therefore, having a familiar sound after means that older fans of BOSTON MANOR don’t need to worry about the band losing their sound. The EP’s pacing remains consistent so far too, despite the change in sound. This is because the band have experimented with genre before, so it sounds more polished.
Desperate Pleasures is a guitar-driven song that combines the pop-punk sound and the experimental sound of the two previous songs. For any other band, this would be a mess of a song. But not for BOSTON MANOR. The combination of two different styles of music makes sense as this is the halfway point of the EP, and again it does not disrupt the pacing.
On I Don’t Like People (& They Don’t Like Me), Cox imagines himself as “a cynical criminal drifting through liminal.” The lyrics describe him as “a surface-level freak” who “no one’s listening to“. These feelings of isolation are something everyone can relate to, especially in the last year and a half or so. The song itself is a mid-tempo rock number. While a slight dip in tempo from the previously more upbeat tracks, the pacing of the EP is not thrown off as the production is fantastic. Closer Let the Right One In is another mid-tempo song that shares its name with the Swedish 2008 horror film. The guitar driven song is a fantastic way to end the record, culminating in a guitar-solo.
Overall, BOSTON MANOR have once again proved themselves worthy. By extending the genre-less sound they were experimenting with, the band have opened up new doors for themselves. This EP is superb, and is accessible for fans both new and old. The pacing is not affected by the changes in genres, and the production is sharp and makes the vocals and the instruments sound super clear. This is a band at the top of their game. It is often said that great art comes out of darkness, and Desperate Times, Desperate Pleasures is a great example of that.
Rating: 9/10
Desperate Times, Desperate Pleasures is set for release on October 29th via SharpTone Records.
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