“Could you please open that window, let the new world in.” The sage simplicity of Sundiver’s opening lyrics says it all. Boston Manor frontman Henry Cox is opening the next chapter of a story that began back in 2022 with their last album, Datura. That record was the first installment of the double album and opened with the lines, “Do me a favour, close that window, keep the heating in, there’s a fire in the car park, I see it smouldering.” Sundiver, then, is the yin to Datura’s yang.

Coming out on September 6th on Sharptone Records, Sundiver is Boston Manor’s fifth studio album and one that represents a glimmering dawn for the Blackpool five-piece. Grown from a seedbed of optimism and sobriety, the LP celebrates new beginnings, second chances and rebirth. With two members recently stepping into fatherhood, hope is baked into every note. “Datura came out of these really dark few years over the hangover of the pandemic,” Henry reflects. “I’d been struggling a lot with drinking and not taking care of myself and bad mental health and stuff. We wanted Sundiver to be the next morning of the following day.” He explains that it feels good this time round to write through the lens of positivity. “The themes began to emerge, of rebirth, spring, dawn, sunshine and then other elements just started to fit into that.” It was during the making of Sundiver that Henry found out he was going to be a dad. This album is a significant one for the band. Originally coming out of the emo and pop punk scene, they’ve explored sonics and genres throughout their career, taken risks and achieved more than they could ever had dreamed of. They’ve grown up as Boston Manor – their lives and the world changing around them. They’re now taking stock, at a crossroads of the band they were and the band they could be.

While writing the album, they revisited the bands that shaped them in the late 90s and early 00s. “I was listening to the music I loved when I was a teenager and I just thought, why don’t we make music like our favourite bands?”, guitarist Mike Cuniff remembers with a smile. “So we brought our interests to the table that way. Y2K kind of vibe. There are elements of Deftones, there are elements of Portishead in there, plus some Garbage, and even The Cardigans,” he laughs. From this cocktail of classics comes a dynamic and ambitious record, rich with depth, groove and more hooks than Peter Pan’s nightmares. Lyrics that foxtrot from parallel universes to personal growth, vivid dreamscapes to raw grief. Individually they’re single strokes full of meaning and magic. Together they’re a landscape.

“Container” is the first radio single and it’s them at their best – impassioned and infectious. “This song is about the stagnancy of life creeping up on you & how that can bring about change.” Henry explains.

The concept of the butterfly effect is present all over Sundiver – how small actions can lead to big changes. Boston Manor are a band known for using their music to make bigger statements about society. This time round they’re harnessing the uplifting power of music, and the communion it creates, as an antidote to the daily doom and isolation. “It seems like absolute chaos out there at the moment,” Henry says. “You’ve got Gaza and Israel, you’ve got Russia, you’ve got the fact that 40% of the world is going to have an election this year and increasingly most governments are leaning very far to the Right. The internet is dividing everybody, people are getting poorer and more desperate. It’s really, really scary.” They considered trying to tackle the weight of it all in their music. “We could’ve written ‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’ on steroids, where it’s just absolute darkness and misery”, referring to their 2018 concept album that deals with class, inequality and the bleaker side of Blackpool. “But, I think it’s really important to write something that people can be immersed in and find some sort of solace in. Somewhere they can escape to from the modern day pressures and everything that’s going on. We’re all in this together.”