May 20, 2022

Secretly Canadian

1xLP (Indie Exclusive Ltd. Edition Forest Green Vinyl)

Porridge Radio is one of the bands hailing from the UK orbiting post-punk, art/indie-rock that — along with Squid, Black Country New Road, Shame and others — that we have grouped into a subgenre we affectionately dubbed Brexit Core. Most releases under that umbrella have dealt with youthful existentialism, breakups, ennui and just some generally not fun moods. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky slots in nicely alongside them, though it exercises more melodic sensibilities than its contemporaries. While the rest of the gang rages and mopes, Porridge Radio rages and mopes on the dance floor. There's hints of pop and emo filtered through the thick cockney malaise, leaving us with the type of earworms their cohort have largely avoided. That makes Waterslide the danciest Brexit Core album to date, and this the most immediately accessible (not to mention evolutionary) record in the oeuvre.