Porridge Radio are gearing up to release a new album next month, and today they’ve shared the latest single, “The Rip,” and its accompanying music video.
Meant to combine the “massive pop” of Charli XCX with the instrumentation of bands like Slothrust or Deftones, “The Rip” was the last song to be completed for Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky after lead singer Dana Margolin took a few years to write the lyrics.
Opening with new wave synths, “The Rip” combines 80s pop with shoegaze, as Margolin bares her soul about losing grip on a relationship. “You’re all that I need,” she screams. “The back of my head/ The back of my hands/ I threw it away before it went bad.”
“At the beginning, it was a song about a power dynamic where I was in control, by the end it was about one where I had none,” Margolin revealed in a statement. “My friends always accuse me of making up idioms and using them like they are well-known phrases and I think this song is full of those. I love the idea of something being sick at the seams, like it’s disintegrating from its core.”
She added, “I like things that are so simple they are universal. I wanted it to sound like when your heart breaks so badly that your entire body aches. I wanted it to feel like your soul is dropping out of your body.” Mission accomplished.
Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky is out May 20th via Secretly Canadian. It also includes the lead single “Back to the Radio” and marks the follow-up to 2020’s Every Bad. Pre-orders are ongoing.