Pillow Queens
Thu 05 Dec 2024 (note: this event has already taken place)
7pm
€25
“ Pillow Queens: Name Your Sorrow – Vigorous riffs, fluid guitar solos, irresistible earworms, this has ‘album of the year’ stamped all over it, with every track packing a punch” - Irish Times
“Once again proving the four-piece as some of the best songwriters going.” - DIY Magazine
“When Pillow Queens arrived in 2016, they were recognised as an exciting new possibility for what a band could mean and rightfully so.” - The Line of Best Fit
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Following the release of the brand new album ‘Name Your Sorrow’, Pillow Queens announces they will embark on an Irish National Tour in 2024 including a Cork date on 5th December
After forming in 2016, the band released a series of singles, honing their craft and working towards their first album, In Waiting (2020). Along the way there have been acclaim from UK and American press, many sold-out gigs and an appearance on James Corden’s US TV show. After signing with Canada’s Royal Mountain Records, they released a follow-up album, Leave the Light On in 2022,
touring the UK, US and Europe extensively, including shows at Austin’s SXSW and supporting Phoebe Bridgers in Glasgow.
Three albums in three years indicate a serious work ethic, for Name Your Sorrow they stuck to a strict schedule. Cathy McGuinness explains that they showed up every day from 9-5, in a windowless Dublin room to just play, swap instruments and experiment. From there, they decamped to a rural Co. Clare retreat to immerse themselves further. “We got on this very non-verbal kind of wavelength, where you just kind of picked up your instruments. It was very instinctive and the most the communal experience we’d ever had of working.”
The palpable shift in sound and tone is possibly the result of working with a new producer, Collin Pastore from Nashville, who has produced boygenius, Lucy Dacus and Illuminati Hotties. The band holed up for three weeks at Analogue Catalogue studio in Newry, and quickly noticed that the change of scene and personnel impacted the record. In the past, they knew exactly how a song would sound before they’d recorded it. “With Collin, we’d record something, listen back and think, ‘that’s not how I thought it would sound’, but it’s better”, admits Rachel Lyons. Before Pastore’s arrival, and thanks to the 9-5 process and the retreat, by the time the band got to the studio, the songs were fully developed and ready to Record.
The band weren’t thinking about three-minute radio tracks – even though they’ve been a mainstay of UK radio playlists, including BBC 6 Music and BBC Radio 1 -but each song tends towards brevity.
The result of combining new experimentation, heartfelt lyrics and a sound that pinballs from quiet and loud offers a kind of catharsis. Of picking through the shrapnel to find slivers of hope.
Previously, the band have road-tested new tracks live, playing them to an audience and reworking them based on the crowd’s reaction. They haven’t done that this time, because the songs already feel fully formed. The band also had to unlearn the process of questioning whether a song sounded like “a Pillow Queens song”.
There are definite links to the last two albums, but Name Your Sorrow feels like a triumphant step in another direction. “I think this record is us being much more secure in our abilities. We just wanted to be true to the songs and true to ourselves”, says Rachel. Between them, they compiled a list of musical references, which are as eclectic as they are surprising: from Vampire Weekend to Barbara Streisand, Frank Ocean to Lana Del Ray.
