Slurp Track

Very smart clean vinyl with a nice crisp cover.

Very interesting icy, goth-styled new wave from the early 80s. Soggy Porridge's Slurp Track EP displays a guitar jangle and clang that paints a sheen over a driving, thumpity bassline. It is a sound totally involved in that early 80s movement of goth and new wave punk. Soggy Porridge were first known to me via JJJ's 1983 Live at the Wireless compilation. Here, this EP's first track "Broken Romance" and third track "Blackout" create very similar vibes to The Cure's sound from the Seventeen Seconds period: a kind of pulsating motion. "Tonight" retains a similar flavour but with extra sounds not unlike those of The Models or early Flowers-era Icehouse.

Side two's "How Can I Tell You" again invokes sub-references to The Cure, this could sit confortably alongside anything on Three Imaginary Boys, being just a tiny bit alien and quirky with ever so subtle phase pedal and some monotonously severe chords. "You Changed", the song featured on JJJ's Live at the Wireless, stays true to the formula of this EP, the guitar twangs sound a bit like Andy Summers in the early era of The Police. Overall, this makes a surprisingly good EP. I would love to find a whole album of this but, sadly, it appears this band did not release a whole lot more.