Every Bad

Every Bad is fragile and robust, confidently flawed, and above all evidence that Porridge Radio is in their ascendancy. They are a real force to be reckoned with and a band with a strong chance of winning this year's Mercury Prize.

Porridge Radio have not only written the album of their careers but possibly of the year too. Their new project ‘Every Bad’ is full of the catchy songs that are overflowing with lo-fi ramshackle post-punk guitars and uplifting vocals.

Few albums carry the raw emotion of ‘Every Bad’, and carry it with such musical confidence.

It's not a perfect album — at times it seems only a taste of the power that Porridge Radio will eventually wield — but it's an important album, a statement of purpose from a group with everything before them.

Every Bad is the nuanced album that indie rock has needed for years.

There’s nothing too complex about what Porridge Radio do, but they do it very well, and Every Bad is unlikely to wear itself out soon.

Using words and noise to create mantras and blow them up, Every Bad is the inspired result of a rock band finding itself in 2020, inhabiting many ways of being.

Upgraded in every sense: songs with deeper meanings, mountainous crescendos and choruses to communitise large crowds. [May 2020, p.32]

It’d be easy to assume the reason Every Bad sounds so vital is because its raw, agitated songs are the perfect soundtrack for these blighted times, built to be played while the world’s never-ending dumpster fire burns hotter and hotter. But it’s also got a slicker, more muscular sound than 2016’s home-recorded Rice, Pasta And Other Fillers.

Margolin's bare-faced humanity is what's at the core of Every Bad, heightening the complicated feelings inherent in every one of us. Still, don't feel fooled into thinking that Porridge Radio's music is simple in terms of character and dynamic range. Whether they intend to or not, their tuneful, guitar-driven songcraft practically obliterates the left-of-center indie that's softened the genre into dreamy, pillowy mush.

Every Bad is a relinquishing of whatever it is that keeps us from baring our souls, and an unleashing of frustration at how, like children riding a carousel, we’re all just going round in circles.

Their skill lies in rearranging familiar elements into something that sounds fresh, largely down to their curious take on songwriting. Porridge Radio are melodically strongest when they seem to be trying the least hard.

With four years between their debut Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers, Every Bad is similarly anxious and seeking validation, endearing itself desperately to any listener who’s ever felt the same way.