by Chris Polley (@qhrizpolley)
We’re all falling apart all of the time. Then we build ourselves and our surroundings back up piece by piece, maybe this time with a bit more knowledge about how to avoid slippage and falling back down all over again. As we climb and sweat and dodge avalanches, often of our own making, we have to keep looking up toward the clouds in the sky and forge ahead, or else the abyss below swallows us up. Somehow, I’m only kind of talking about the state of the world, politically and otherwise. Rather, this is my attempt at articulating the kind of cathartic devastation, of Sisyphean yet nevertheless relentless optimism, inherent on the fourth (and, yes, absolute best) LP by Brighton quartet Porridge Radio, Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me.
Much deserved praise has already been given to lead singer Dana Margolin’s melodramatic but ultimately so very human reckoning delivered in every single track in this epic collection of operatic indie rock, from Pitchfork to Stereogum and beyond, and yet, like the best of the countless guitar-and-drum bands of any given time period, every band member gives this record their all. Four faces aimed toward the heavens, carefully blasting out distorted riffs, propulsive bass lines, unhinged synths, and Animal-from-The-Muppets pummeling percussion (muted or absent whenever it serves the plot, of course), it’s been a good while since a bonafide rawk band felt this musically dialed in while also smartly giving in to emotional wreckage in spurts both earned and innovative. Clouds in the Sky… is one of those records that feels destined to wriggle into the bones of anyone who comes across it—a heartbreak album that can stand in for literally any kind of messy grieving, whether universal or personal, amorphous or hyper-specific.
Recalling (and perhaps inspired by) a calculated synthesis of arena chamber pop stars like Florence Welch or Kate Bush and fuck-it-all counterculture icons such as PJ Harvey and Fiona Apple, Margolin manages to retain a wry brightness about her that is refreshingly unlike her heroes and contemporaries, bold and unmoored enough to end her record half-shouting, “I’m sick of the blues / I’m in love with my life again” ad infinitum before a delicate horn section signals a premature outro, walking the listener away like a laughing pied piper. Likewise, on opener “Anybody,” she comes out of the gate swinging, both at the object of her affection/rejection as well as herself, tumbling into the microphone to declare, “I will run until I can reach you / I will run until I can leave you.” Between those two equally contradictory couplets, the unsparing self-analysis and therapeutic venting stays at a 10/10, never letting up for longer than the time it might take to retune a string that got strummed out of tune in reckless abandon during the previous chorus.
These moments of gentle brooding are vital to Porridge Radio’s masterful ebb and flow, as seen in previous efforts that were compositionally sound but simply did not soar high enough to make the kind of magnanimous impact Clouds in the Sky… does. The nervous rollick of the first half of “Lavender, Raspberries” is what makes that song’s bursting intensity that lasts its entire second half so visceral and probing. The bitter, acoustic verses of “The God of Everything” are what allow for the release of angry energy to hit so hard in the refrain. Keyboardist Georgie Stott’s wistful backing vocals and impeccably chosen Yamaha and Casiotone voices throughout “You Will Come Home” help to amplify the yearning that slowly builds, only to have the bottom drop out and become an anthemic dirge that would feel equally at home at an Irish funeral drenched in Guinness as it would in a teenager’s bedroom after a knock-down-drag-out with mom and/or dad.
Drummer Sam Yardley’s restraint during Margolin and Stott’s scene-setting is maybe the band’s secret weapon here, because when the kick drum purely pulses and the cymbals simply swell on “In a Dream I’m a Painting,” this only makes the raucous explosions of “Sleeptalker” and the octopus fills in “Wednesday” that much more satisfying. Dynamic puzzle pieces like this abound throughout in ways both mysterious and pantheon-proven, allowing almost every track to feel as full as a rushing waterfall and as broken as a beaver’s DNR-destroyed dam. The emotions flood in and out but with care and concern, which are just as tantamount as rage and relief.
“Nothing left / a healing song,” Margolin utters in the softest tune on the record—the short, percussion-less “I Got Lost.” Maybe it’s not a thesis, but it’s a stark reality check for those of us that make it to the other side of a broken heart: we can be both healed and still feel empty. This is part of the process. This is the step between falling down and getting back up. Whether it’s the results of November 5th, a soulmate that has divested from your future, or a job that you realize never loved you back, we need that time on the ground, eyes aimed at the shaded sun, knowing there is maybe not a brightness ahead, but at least there’s the opportunity to get back up on your legs, and maybe even back up on the side of that mountain, even if chances are slim that you’ll ever see the summit.