Dublin’s Pillow Queens are back with their third album, Name Your Sorrow, and they are solid in every way, with exemplary musicianship and vocals and a compelling lyrical point of view. Yet this record comes off as a bit of a disappointment because some of the songs aren’t distinctive enough.
The singles illustrate this dichotomy quite well. “Suffer” opens with a low, chugging feel and brightens up a bit. The rumbling bass is excellent, as are the sparkly guitar leads that buttress the refrain vocals. But that refrain, “No matter how long / No matter how long we suffer”, is practically tuneless, giving the track a sort of anti-hook. That doesn’t seem intentional, and it ends up blunting the point of the lyrics, which is about a person determined to keep a home and family together despite relationship hardships.
“Gone” is a mid-tempo number coated in layers of pleasing guitar distortion, with disco-style syncopated hi-hat cymbals that give the song a nice groove. Yet it doesn’t really build up to anything, feeling static all the way through. A mid-song bridge where the drums drop out changes it a little, but not enough to keep the song engaging. The third single, “Like a Lesson”, has a genuinely catchy guitar riff that Pillow Queens are savvy enough to use as the introduction. It also has a compelling chorus with a simple point, “You treat me like a lesson / You treat me like a test”, which is quite memorable. In this case, there’s also a bridge where everything stops, but the vocal melody and sentiment, “I don’t wanna ruin my life / But I wanna go home with you”, are sticky.
“Heavy Pour”, the fourth single, also succeeds. It has a steady verse and a chorus with a very singable hook. Lyrically, Pillow Queens’ viewpoint also resonates with verses about how nobody supported a relationship, but they felt otherwise. That refrain, though, “Oh, your heavy pour / Keeps me at your door”, indicates that maybe the friends were right.
Elsewhere, Name Your Sorrow is a mixed bag. “February 8” begins with a dynamic drumbeat over layers of buzzing guitar distortion. The opening verse, with clipped, quick singing, is compelling, but when the song gets to the chorus, there isn’t much melody to it. This flat effect drags the track down right when it should be taking off. The song also never returns to the opening quick verse style, which is a detriment.
“Friend of Mine”, on the other hand, works quite well in an upbeat pop-rock mode. The simple chorus, where the narrator goes back and forth trying to determine whether she and a friend are just friends or something more, works because it has a solid hook. The song also slows down to a bridge when the lyrics say, “Slow down”, which is an obvious but fun trick. This track has an extended outro, but the guitar solo that plays here is catchy and exciting.
“So Kind” begins with a distinctive bright and open guitar riff and then builds a middling song around it. It bumps along unremarkably until it hits the bridge, where it suddenly gets some life and energy, but maybe not enough to salvage the track. “Love II” feels like it has something going for it, with its heartfelt lyrics, “I always thought that you’d come back around / I just thought that I’d feel better now / I don’t.” The intense vocal performance nearly pulls the plodding rest along, but not quite. The one-liner, “I lost myself in the divorce”, might be the record’s most memorable line, though.
The ballad “Blew Up the World” begins with acoustic guitar and vocals and compares a tenuous romantic relationship to blowing up the world. It’s very dramatic, and the song builds nicely, sticking with the primarily acoustic arrangement until the final third when the electric guitars fully enter. Pillow Queens aren’t throwing any songwriting curveballs here but are following the template successfully.
Name Your Sorrow‘s closer, “Notes on Worth”, is similarly heartfelt but similarly uninspired musically. Lyrically, it examines the emotional state of wanting a more serious relationship and craving the cheap gratification of a one-night stand. Musically, it’s a sort of inert power ballad. The chorus at least has peaks and valleys, but the rest of the song rolls placidly along without much energy.
In contrast, “One Night”, the antepenultimate track, would’ve made an excellent final number. It begins with a harsh wash of feedback, and the slow but heavy drums match these crunchy guitars throughout. Very low-pitched vocals rumble through the verses, build in the pre-chorus, and get to the weird but memorable chorus, “Well, I’ll smell like / Whatever you smell like / You can fuck me clean.” If Name Your Sorrow has one track that lives up to Pillow Queens’ potential as a rock band to watch, it’s this one. The combination of noise and hooks is so well-balanced here and shows what they can do when things click for them.
Pillow Queens get some press for being an all-female LGBTQ group from Ireland. Their lyrics come from this viewpoint, but what makes those lyrics resonate is how universal these relationship issues feel. Unfortunately, sometimes the songwriting’s hit-and-miss nature blunts the lyrics’ impact. Lead vocalists Pamela Connolly and Sarah Corcoran are strong singers with a lot of grit in their voices, while lead guitarist Cathy McGuinness can really play. Half of Name Your Sorrow is superb, while the other half is rather run-of-the-mill rock that can make one’s attention wander.