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 has been acclaim from UK and American press, many sold-out gigs and an appearance on James Corden's Late Late 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 indicates 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 retreat in County Clare along the Atlantic coastline of Ireland, 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 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 on 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. During their day-long sessions, they’d break the longer recordings into songs, and reassemble the parts, a sort of Frankenstein process. And this monstrosity – of heartache and the physicality of loss and pain – makes sense, especially in how the album sounds. Pamela says they “started quietly, and then the loudness came later”, evident in the more reflective ‘Blew Up the World’ and ‘Notes on Worth’ and the rasping guitars of ‘Gone’ and ‘One Night’.  In the past, the band were against writing album songs that they couldn’t replicate live, but they’ve incorporated a grand piano and harmonica here. Analogue Catalogue studio (which is 100% female-owned) is also home to a collection of vintage equipment and amps, some of which belonged to New Order, so the band took the opportunity to play around with them, and “got their hands dirty”.

 

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.