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Oct 23, 2024 Web Exclusive By Paul Veracka

Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There For Me, Porridge Radio’s fourth album, is a treasure trove of lovesick lucidities and unhappy happiness, the older-than-time contradictions of human life. After a year of burnout and a bad breakup, leader Dana Margolin feels lucid and in control on the record, delivering a powerful and meaningful project filled with moments of joy, despair, and rapturous slacker rock highs.

Porridge Radio’s secret sauce is whatever happens when Margolin’s roving, aching vocals meet thrumming, distorted basslines and explosive drum fills. There is no shortage of that here, but there is also newness: Margolin had a case of writer’s block after her burnout, so she initiated her songwriting for this album by writing the lyrics as poetry. “It feels like the first time we’ve made something,” she says in a press release about the results of her fresh approach.

As Margolin searches for something real among the fog of heartbreak, she expertly places us in the clouds. Across the record, she sings of “sky above, sky below,” “watching the birds fly overhead,” and “the clouds in the wind.”

As this setting is established, we are ripe to experience her hunger and urgency for clarity. She meditates on the line “I would do anything to see what I’m waiting for” on the highlight “You Will Come Home.” On the opening track, she repeats, “I dance and I dance and I’m trying to reach you” over a twinkling cacophony, blissful and pining. And in the end, we are introduced to a fleeting joy, not so convincing. It feels ephemeral when Margolin sings on the closing track, “I’m sick of the blues, I’m in love with my life again.” Her delivery lifts the line like a mantra as it twists and spirals over the increasingly angular jangle pop instrumentals.

The record’s motifs surge with flavor as Margolin’s eloquent talk-singing is backed by euphoric instrumentals. The band has a knack for touching upon arena rock’s divine grandiosity without losing a twee familiarity and closeness. The result feels like riding among the clouds. (www.porridgeradio.com)

Author rating: 8/10