Porij Stoke Further Excitement Over Debut Album ‘Teething’ With ‘Unpredictable’

Porij are an outfit you’d have expected to have an album or two under their belts right about now. Formed in 2020, the outfit is composed of Jacob Maguire (guitars), Nathan Carroll (Drums), Scout ‘Egg’ Moore (Vocals and Keys) and James Middleton (Bass and Keys), and their sound can be best described in relation to their convincing commitment to genre fusion.

They take inspiration from varied musical styles; house, synth-pop, garage, drum ‘n’ bass, electronic, and it’s an addictive cocktail of musical amalgamations that make Porij quite impossible to define insofar as their sound remains to this day an uncompromising exploration of ever broadening musical landscapes.

Maybe it’s this commitment to musical exploration that explains why a debut album hasn’t yet emerged in the four years of the band's existence.  

And in all honesty, it’s a plan that's worked wonderfully for the group. The 2020 ‘Baby Face’ and 2021 ‘Breakfast’ EP’s garnered critical and audience acclaim for a group so young into existence, and this continued well into 2022 with the ‘outlines’ EP and into 2023 with a support slot on Coldplay’s Manchester run of their 'Music of The Spheres' tour. 

Coming in the wake of breakneck rave track ‘You Should Know Me’ and the shimmering, wistful ‘My Only Love’, ‘Unpredictable’ rests sonically in the middle of the previous two. The track beckons with stuttering synth and vocal sample, before muted drum pattern and Egg’s vocals propel the track forward. The pre-choruses pull it back, leaving that vocal sample and synth to bounce around the lead vocals, now drenched in a long reverb. The choruses begin with briefest refrain, before purest dance drumming accompanies, those synth flickers now well entrenched with emerging 808 bass synth lines that bend around the shimmering mix. It’s a track that takes the pulse-raising tendencies of ‘You Should Know Me’ and the more wistful approach of ‘My Only Love’ and distils it down into a track that will just as easily have you inwardly pondering as it will have you dancing around. The track foregrounds a much more definitive and focused sound in the lead up to their debut album release. If their most recent offerings are anything to go by, the excitement will remain in earnest. 

Harry Meenagh

harry-meenagh

Image: ‘Unpredictable’ Official Single Cover