Singer Dana Margolin likes to share, and the lyrics that drive Porridge Radio are about clarity and immediacy more than poetic resonance. When she repeats “I don’t wanna go back,” it sounds like she doesn’t wanna go back. Margolin operates by a 1=1 theory and her lack of artifice makes Porridge Radio so affecting and immediate. There’s a lazy beauty to the guitar stuff that feels like Pavement, and a variety of instrumentation that recalls all the stomp clap bands without lapsing into yo ho ho beer commercial clownery. When Margolin sings, “I associate you with good things and I can’t imagine anything at all,” it is vivid and blunt enough to make you stop and think “Am I good at imagining things? What is imagining anyway?”

– Sasha Frere-Jones