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Pillow Fite is an indie folk/pop/rock duo hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia formed by Art Ross and Aaron Green, who joined forces over text messaging song ideas during the Covid lockdown. They say it’s their vastly different musical approaches that serve to complement resulting tunes that range from soft and sweet to stinging and sour; a mix that propels the new album, “Hard Feelings, Soft Promises”.
Art’s distinctive vocal caught my ears right away. It uncannily reminds of Suzanne Vega and occasionally Jenna Kyle from Bleach Lab, particularly when Pillow Fite gets into full indie rock mode. Art sings without over-inflection, too, which is refreshingly different than the bottomless myriad of bedroom-indie-popsters that flood YouTube. Meanwhile Green, who is no stranger to loud guitar music with his bands, Floodland and Hello Delaware, brings much to the table with his skillful playing on “Hard Feelings…”.
Single, “Ativan” is an aggressive, 90s-fueled case in point.
The same edge is here with lead track, “Sunday”, an opening salvo that lets listeners know this band is blowing past their initial EP with pride and power. Other standout rock tunes include “A Friend” and “May”. “February” may initially sound like The Sundays but veers contemporary, rocking the chorus and middle eight, elevating it into Bleach Lab or Mercury Prize-winning Wolf Alice territory.
But the band deftly serves up another of its weapons on the new album. Indie-folk, which may be PF’s strongest suit or at least their calling card to date, permeates songs like “Hacks”. Dreamy reverb notes add a lush backdrop without overcomplicating the mix. They bleed into indie-pop territory, too, on singles “Alma” and “More of That”. In some instances, they’ve crafted genre hops within the same song. The outstanding closing track, “Camera Roll”, kicks off like a long-lost Suzanne Vega solo acoustic piece, before building and expanding into a searing guitar beast, complete with Lindsay Buckingham -esque heroics. The results are complex, jarring, but ultimately rewarding, too.
Pillow Fite’s singer, Art, identifies as queer and non-binary, and so it’s fitting that PF blurs its genres and has since its inception. The ”Flutter EP” mixed elements of alt-country, -folk, and -pop, too. But on the EP, Green’s guitars chimed but didn’t churn. It works well on the EP’s gorgeous “Virgo” and on the new LP’s “Hacks”, but it’s a winning formula made better by bringing in more intensity and even occasional dissonance. Green’s production and arranging are crisp and confident on “Hard Feelings…” as well.
As the band rightly says in its press materials, “’Hard Feelings, Soft Promises’ is unapologetic and brave, I think. A small impression of a year consisting of escapism, frustration, and infatuation. I hope if anything, it shows we are not afraid of trying. Because what else are we supposed to do? This record is not only an example our growth, but the freedom to throw spaghetti at the wall. Break things and glue them back together. We set out to find where the songs wanted to go and upgrade the sonics to clearly match the tenor of the lyrics, confidently self-aware but struggling to find out how it matters in the grand scheme of things.”
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