Dublin’s Pillow Queens are getting set to release their sophomore album Leave The Light On, their first release on Royal Mountain Records (Wild Pink, Alvvays, US Girls), which is due out on April 1st, and today the band are sharing the album’s final pre-release single, a track called “No Good Woman.” Preceded by the singles “Hearts & Minds” and “Be By Your Side“. The single arrives at an exciting moment for the band who are about to make their debut on American shores. Their first shows will take place at SXSW, before they trace their way across the continent, with their New York debut at Mercury Lounge recently selling out over a month in advance.
This song is one which is very narrative based, though not in a linear way. It’s written more from the perspective of someone looking upon the scenarios of those around them,” explains singer Pam Connolly. “It tries to convey a perpetual hopelessness of debt and striving for an ideal that can never be achieved. It’s pretty much a song about Sisyphus.”
Full details of Pillow Queens upcoming tour dates can be found below.
To make Leave the Light On, the second full-length album from Dublin’s Pillow Queens, the band looked towards introspection. It’s a lonely record, evoking feelings of late night drives on back roads where you digest the day and quietly change lanes. Make no mistake: loneliness doesn’t mean alone, necessarily. On Leave the Light On, the band’s first record with Royal Mountain, loneliness is a warm space to reflect, to meditate. To quote the writer Maggie Nelson in her experimental work of auto-theory Bluets: “When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light.” Leave the Light On is a record not of longing but of light. It glows in tungsten. It is a record of queer dream blues.
Leave the Light On comes at a time where things are rapidly accelerating for the band, which consists of Pamela Connolly, Sarah Corcoran, Rachel Lyons, and Cathy McGuinness. After the success of their first record, 2020’s In Waiting, Pillow Queens went on to play bigger venues, festivals, and played James Corden. Music became a full time occupation for the band. At a point where most artists would get less personal and inward, Pillow Queens did the opposite. Leave the Light On is their most inward-focused release to date. It’s also a record about exploring the unknown, and for yearning.
Just take a song like “Hearts and Minds,” as one such offering. It’s a song about being perceived, by yourself, and by everyone else around you. It’s about feeling like a teenager again. And it feels anthemic, tinged by C86 power pop and varicolored harmonies. “Well I’m not fixin to move/I’m atrophied from winning over all these hearts and minds,” sings Connolly in her pristine and muscular voice.
The record is also a sonic departure for the band. Leave the Light On sounds huge, but also soft and intimate. It encourages a sense of duality—it is a record you can blast and a record you can also listen to on headphones in a moment where you just need to be alone with your thoughts.“Well Kept Wife,” is sparse, with iridescent guitars and crystalline bass. It takes inspiration from the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, and the appeal of the banal and the everyday. Meanwhile “My Body Moves,” feels like a heartbreaking spark, a lift, it makes you want to dance and hold on for dear life. “Is it cool if I hold onto/Every inch of you/Till my skin turns blue.”
Leave the Light On is an inherently collaborative piece of work. Recorded in the Spring of 2021, the band wrote over the course of three months, and then went into the studio to work with producer Tommy McLaughlin, who the band worked with on In Waiting. The record came together quickly and naturally, becoming the most realized Pillow Queens release to date.
Leave The Light On is due out April 1st on Royal Mountain Records. It is available for preorder here.
Tour Dates
March 9th – Kilkenny, Ireland @ Set Theatre (Sold out)
March 10th – Galway, Ireland @ Roisin Dubh (Sold out)
March 11th – Dublin, Ireland @ Button Factory (Sold out)
March 12th – Dublin, Ireland @ Button Factory (Sold out)
March 15 – 18th
SXSW
Tues 15th:
3pm
Paste x Women That Rock showcase @ The Pershing (2415 E 5th St, Austin, TX 78702)
1am
ATC Live x British Music Embassy 2022@ Cedar Street Courtyard.
Thur 17th:
12am
Velveeta Room / Music From Ireland showcase
Fri 18th:
11:20pm
Royal Mt showcase
Venue: Valhalla, 710 Red River St, Austin, TX, 78701
March 23rd – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
March 24th – Los Angeles, CA @ Moroccan Lounge
March 25th – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel SF
March 27th – Seattle, WA @ Clock-out Lounge
March 29th – Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall
March 30th – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
April 1st – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
April 2nd – Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive
April 4th – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown Jr.
April 6th – Saint Paul, MN @ Turf Club
April 7th – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
April 9th – Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
April 11th – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd
April 12th – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
April 14th – New York, NY @ The Mercury Lounge *SOLD OUT*
April 15th – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
May 3rd – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
May 5th – Manchester, UK @ Gorilla
May 6th – Glasgow, Scotland @ Stereo
May 7th – Newcastle, UK @ Cluny
May 10th – Brighton, UK @ Chalk
May 11th – London, UK @ Scala
May 12th – Birmingham, UK @ The Castle and Falcon
May 13th – Bristol, UK @ Thekla
June 12th Berlin, Germany @ Tempelhof Festival
July 2nd – Gdynia, Poland @ Open’er Festival
October 1st – Dublin, Ireland @ Vicar St.
October 2nd – Dublin, Ireland @ Vicar St.
October 7th – Limerick, Ireland @ Dolan’s
October 8th – Cork, Ireland @ Cyprus Avenue
October 14th – Belfast, Ireland @ The Empire
October 15th – Galway, Ireland @ The Roisin Dubh
October 16th – Galway, Ireland @ The Roisin Dubh
October 20th – Kilkenny, Ireland @ The Set Theatre
