Porridge Radio succeed again on Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me

Bolstered by alternately brash and spare instrumentation, Margolin continues to explore her signature mix of tortured diarism and heartbroken lovesickness, a listener riveted by the spectacle of her flirting with madness, finding brief respite, then hurtling herself toward madness once again.

With opener “Anybody”, as with previous work, Margolin holds the torch for romantic extremism. “Don’t want to know anybody else”, she moans, touting the all-consuming and singular relationship. Fuck balance might be this band’s tagline. And yet, when she adds, “I dance and I dance and I’m trying to reach you”, her voice strained and frayed, she highlights how enmeshment is inevitably (and ironically) accompanied by a sense of relational precariousness. The more one tries to possess someone, the more elusive they seem.

“A Hole in the Ground” starts off on a relatively even-keeled tone. As the piece progresses, the mix becomes more cacophonous, Margolin inching toward an untethered desperation. “Lavender, Raspberries” is a steamy, angsty, and hooky tune replete with references to idealized love (“I take it for granted you’ll always be there for me”) and suicide (“I have the urge to jump off the balcony”). Drummer Sam Yardley offers notable variations in busyness and intensity as Margolin pounds a distorted guitar, channelling her garage-punk heroes.

“Wednesday” shows Margolin taking a break from her “full-catastrophe” MO. Embracing a softer yet still volatile vocal delivery, she navigates imagery that points to the possibility of redemption (“oh shadow you will always be there for me / the clouds in the wind the birds in trees”). “Pieces of Heaven” is a similarly smouldering take on lost love (“grown tired of waiting / and tired of wanting you”), Margolin juxtaposing restraint and catharsis in a way that occasionally recalls Indigo de Souza or Sarah Mary Chadwick. Georgie Stott provides elegant synthy accents.

“In a Dream” unfurls in a murky, limbic space that brings to mind a manic Lana Del Rey channelling an agonized Julee Cruise. While Margolin’s lyrics point to an emotional uplift (“nothing makes me sad now / everything makes me happy”), her fractured timbre and the band’s clangorous sonics point to a pressing sarcasm, a proclivity displayed throughout Porridge Radio’s oeuvre. The hyper-hooky “Sick of the Blues” is similarly built around a biting motif, Margolin claiming “I’m in love with my life again”, even as she grows increasingly unhinged, her voice shattered by song’s end. Freddy Wordsworth’s brief trumpet solo closes the track (and project) on a noirish and melancholy note.

Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me is certainly consistent with Porridge Radio’s playbook as forged via previous work, particularly 2020’s Every Bad and 2022’s Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky. While Margolin still leads with a raggedy blend of indignation and yearning, she also seems more resolved in facing long-standing grief and/or lingering PTSD. There’s fury here, floods of it, but also sorrow. It’s as if Margolin stands amidst a storm, weeping while she shakes her fist at the sky, a cross between Ophelia, Eurydice, and Medea. She rages against the Fates, though she’ll be damned if she’ll drop to her knees.