Pillow Fite first appeared in a glitter bomb of enthusiastic feelings, an acoustic guitar duo given to constant queer longing and occasional full-band outings. Across a handful of singles and their first EP, Flutter, Art Ross (they/them/Pisces) and Aaron Green (he/him/Virgo) combined their respective gifts of reflection and melody for moody, slow-burning indie-folk aimed straight at the heart.
On Hard Feelings, Soft Promises, the pair’s second record, it’s not that everything has changed: Ross’ open, intimate lyrics and Green’s guitar and production prowess remain rooted at its centre. But Pillow Fite, in just a few years of existence—which translates to many more in music years—has followed a gently but perpetually evolving sound wherever it would take them to land at the band’s current form, a mash-up of genres that arrives at something as singular as it is queer. Something that asks, “What if Suzanne Vega fronted The Strokes, but they were gay and poor?”
It’s an approach that dovetails with Ross’ life as a trans person and the concept of passing—as they have learned to live as a non-binary artist, they’ve been simultaneously dealing with the expectations of the industry they’re still new to, navigating playlists, festival selection processes, and the male gaze. Green, who came up in Halifax rock bands, has also been yearning to move beyond tube amps and rock guitar riffs to experiment sonically with synths, noise, and arrangements. Hard Feelings, Soft Promises, with eight of its nine songs all less than a year old, is a portrait of a band at its highest power, its truest self: present and living in wide-open wild-heartedness.
Ross wrote the lyrics largely in the half-year stretch between a messy breakup and a sweet new love. The album reflects those two states in equal measure, oscillating between songs of sadness and anger to hope and grace. The opener “Sunday” is a fuzzy mid-’90s lament about the last moments before the looming week, and whether Ross will choose to participate. The darkness looms around the edges of the fist-pumper “Ativan,” the jealousy-ridden “A Friend,” the emo-tinged “February” (“I care what you think of me/just not in February”), and the urgent, epic closer “Camera Roll,” which finds Ross staring at a phone full of friends who no longer reach out.
The lightness emerges, too, in the first-blush-of-love ballad “More of That,” the redemptive “May,” and the dreamy “Alma,” the album’s lone pandemic reference, a wistful love song for a very particular time: “I know the shapes of words that come from your eyes / Burned in my head are your boredom sighs / Stuck between walls with you, but there’s charm in that.” On “Hacks,” they hit both ends of Ross’ mental health spectrum, depicting a person who’s just figured out what to live for.
Green’s production skills have accumulated, expanded, and been deployed into songs that experiment with form, texture, harmony, and genre. His precise but ornate approach heightens and brightens the often tough and bleak lyrics at each song’s centre, underlining Pillow Fite’s reputation as a band that makes you feel via words and melodies.
If Flutter was a gentle knock at the door, Hard Feelings, Soft Promises kicks it off its hinges. Older, smarter, angrier. Wiser, shrewder, happier. Hard, and soft.
“Folk”
– Pop Queer Duo