One of these days, I’ll be in a position where I’ll stop narrowly missing seeing porij play live.

I first became aware of them back in 2022 when I was doing my planning for the inaugural Float Along Festival event in Sheffield city centre. Unfortunately, however, my chance to see them at Sidney & Matilda passed me by that day because of time overruns and public transport issues.

The personal near misses continued as any applicable dates that I could have otherwise attended on their Teething tour either clashed with work (for those who don’t know, I work nights), or with another show that I’d booked prior.

But heck, it is what it is. When you live the life that I and others follow, clashes are always going to happen.

At least I’ve got the album to blast over and over until that time comes. Unfortunately it won’t be at this year’s Get Together event over on Kelham Island on May 18 as I’m out in Manchester. But it will happen eventually. Count on it, they’re too good to keep missing.

Anyway, back to Teething, porij’s debut album, released on April 26th. Good single buildup, ‘You Should Know Me’ stands out for being quite the banger. But after hearing ‘Unpredictable’ for the first time a few weeks ago, that song stuck firmly in my head for the right reasons, and it has a deserved place in my 2024 Top 20 Contenders List.

The opening track is called ‘Marmite’, and I’m definitely in the ‘love’ camp for that, and for the whole album. And the one track that can rival Unpredictable for being my favourite song contained within is, without any doubt, ‘Sweet Risk’. A head wobbler, foot stomper, shape thrower, it has it all.

Teething as a whole represents 36 minutes and 37 seconds of my life that I definitely don’t want back. And perhaps you might feel the same way should you give it a listen too.