Dignan Porch - Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen

London based foursome Dignan Porch may be making spurious claims with their title of their second album – Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen – but this doesn’t mean such startling optimism is misplaced. Originally a vehicle for frontman Joe Walsh’s muse, their first release as a full band is a shimmering, occasionally sharp, psych-pop exercise in lo-fi. While the latter aspect ensures that the album sporadically sounds as if it were recorded in a sock, Walsh and co. have sufficient craft and guile to flourish through the fuzz.

Dignan Porch offer a very English take on the AM radio sound perfected by the likes of Best Coast and Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. But whereas the latter is all fractal flamboyance, Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen is an album steeped in pastoral bliss albeit with bursts of rustic weirdness. ‘Never’ and ‘Sixteen Hits’ shamble along at a leisreuly pace set by gently chiming guitars before being entirely overrun by shards of squealing distortion. However, the noise never threatens to entirely mask the effortlessly fine grasp of melody – ‘Darkness’ could be Sonic Youth covering XTC and ‘Sad Shape’, driven by snare fills and organ stabs, is the album’s finest melange of distorted and melodic sounds. Dignan Porch are slightly less effective at a less sprightly pace, veering too close to the point of collapse on ‘And Are Now Not’, but this is a fine exercise in pearly, bleary eyed acid pop.