Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
Short-lived relationships don’t have much of a script. There are no pangs of loneliness when an anniversary arrives, seldom photos to delete, and no belongings to return. We don’t mourn someone’s presence as much as chastise ourselves for crafting an idea of a person that never got a chance to exist, or maybe never even existed in the first place. Dreadful shame compounds the aching loss: do I even deserve to feel this sad?
Porridge Radio’s Dana Margolin regains her sense of self after an intense yet fleeting relationship reemerges on the group’s fourth album, Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me. After an ambitious tour following Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky in 2022, Margolin ducked out of the public eye. She returns with renewed energy and clarity amidst a dreary backdrop of industry burnout and personal isolation. It provides a glimpse into the artist’s struggle to use work as healing and catharsis without succumbing to their own sorrows. Margolin is no longer losing her breath trying to outrun her sadness. Instead of looking to rebuild her shattered past, she finds harmony by scorning those who wronged her and torching everything to the ground.
Each song on this album began as a poem before the band transformed them into a ragged testament to loss, acceptance, and triumph. With guidance from engineer Dom Monks, the quartet operates at their most self-assured while preserving their trademark vulnerability. On the opening track “Anybody,” Margolin’s voice trembles with quiet confidence. The pleading refrain, “I’m trying to reach you,” carries a sense of foreboding; she knows it’s already over. Her gasps and shrieks pile upon each other until they collapse under their own weight, a familiar formula throughout the album and Porridge Radio’s emotive discography.
“A lot of this album is about a more frenetic and desperate kind of love. It is about completely losing my sense of self in one relationship and the deep residue of insecurity and pain that lingered and clouded a new relationship,” Margolin mentioned in a press release. On “Lavender Raspberries,” she gasps for stability between crashing waves of detachment with I-statements reminiscent of the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique. Her vocal delivery swings between post-punk deadpan and melodramatic snarl.
On the penultimate track, “Pieces of You,” Margolin begs to return to normal and for the anguish to stop. With revolutionary clarity, she repeats, “Grown tired of waiting and tired of wanting you” in an attempt to take back her power. Each song immortalizes different stages of grief, and the flecks of hope progressively brighten, culminating in the triumphant closer “Sick of the Blues.” Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me explicitly navigates the stage after the breakup that requires some degree of just getting over it. At some point, there’s an individual responsibility to reclaim autonomy, turn the page, and find new sources of happiness.
Disappointing / Average / Good / Great / Phenomenal
Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me is out now via Secretly Canadian.
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Giliann Karon | @lethalrejection
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