Porridge Radio: Jacaranda, Liverpool

Porridge Radio

Porridge Radio gave us a preview of their new album, Every Bad at the Jacaranda, Getintothis’ Peter Goodbody was all ears.

It’s been three and a half years since the last album from Porridge Radio, the curiously titled Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers.

But March 13 sees the release of new LP, Every Bad on Secretly Canadian!

And that prospect seems to be making waves, as well as a hefty UK tour set for later in March and April this year. Tonight in the Jac was a teaser of what’s to come.

A stripped back show of some of the new material and album signing, early doors and no support.

We had a short set of 8 songs, seven from the new album and an old one, Pop Song.

The band has been around for a while, initially from open mic nights in and around Brighton, where Dana Margolin ruffled feathers by being quite the noise merchant. A natural progression and Porridge Radio the band was born.

There were a few homemade demos before 2016’s Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers hit the shelves.

But, now feels like the time for bigger things. On tonight’s showing, the wait for Every Bad was well worth it. The live show isn’t too shabby, either.

Dana announced recent single from the album, Circling on Facebook by telling us: “A lot of the songs on Every Bad are centred around the sea, and Circling was one of the last songs focused on the water that I wrote for the album. I was thinking on the idea of willing things to be okay by repeating that they are, because I need them to be. I tried to follow the feeling of the flow of waves, and how they keep coming in endlessly, washing everything away without judgment, and then bringing it back again“.

Best photographs of February 2020: Fatoumata Diawara, King Nun, Psycho Comedy

Down in the Jac basement we’re met by Dana on the merch stand selling t-shirts and pre-release copies of the album. We’re not allowed to take the CDs home, though, we’ll have to wait until next week to collect them.

This gig is the first time we’ll get hear most of the new material.

“Come closer” is a familiar band exhortation. “Let’s make it intimate, we’ve got candles”. The crowd obliges.

They start with Born Confused and Circling from the new album, the latter being one of the less urgent, less jangly, numbers with keyboards taking more of a lead. All of the time Dana’s vocals sound like she’s about to burst into tears. She doesn’t, of course, but that’s the effect you get watching her sing.

There’s a raw edge to Don’t Ask Me Twice with it’s sawing guitars and more shouty punky vocals.

“Thanks for coming. We’ve never been to Liverpool before. This is really nice, we thought there’d be like one person here”. There are plenty more than that.

Highlight of the new material from where we were standing was probably Sweet. It alternates between slow considered passages followed by an all out rage of passion. Rinse and repeat. It’s clever.

Caught @porridgeradio last night at @thejacclub doing a pre-release in-store performance. Absolutely loved them. The sound of delicate-yet-loud was wonderful. pic.twitter.com/d5cQtZ9rwe

— glamgigpics (@glamgigpics) March 7, 2020

But there wasn’t a downer in the 30 minutes or so for which the band was on stage. There are shades of Elastica at times, crossed with a voice that has the power and edge of Amanda Palmer, but Porridge Radio happily exist in an ever growing 20s space occupied by the likes of Witch Fever, Kiss Me Killer and Dead Naked Hippies.

They aren’t quite so in your face punk, perhaps, but it’s a fairly broad church and we’d think they would be more than welcome to break bread with those three. There are others, too, of course, but you get the idea.

Porridge Radio are back in Liverpool on March 27 and on tour around the UK soon. You’d be daft to miss them.

Images by Getintothis’ Ashleigh Knight