Fire's Chill Pick - February 2026

 Hey guys, it’s Fire back with the monthly Chill Pick article!! And this month we’ve got something...different, but absolutely worth checking out!!



Lorin O’Leary - When It Rains

Release: February 7, 2026

Genres: Folk Pop, Singer-Songwriter

So this is kinda uncharted territory for me...because I actually know this artist—I’m in a club that she’s an officer for at my college. And she knows that I review music on a blog, though I’m not sure she knows it’s called Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes haha. Either way, this is a review I wanna treat with care, because if she were to find this review and I say something that comes off harsh, that might make things very awkward for us. So I’ll start this review off by saying that Lorin O’Leary is a club officer for a club called the “Songwriters’ Circle”. I joined this club late in 2025 and as a result I think I’ve developed a deeper insight into how challenging the songwriting process can be, especially if you’re like many of the students in that club and have a rather low budget. As such, I’m treating this review as an evaluation of O’Leary’s potential as an artist rather than an assessment of the song’s replayability or masterful production. Because musically, this is very stripped back and bare. It probably would sound best in a live setting. The very barebones instrumentation puts the focus on O’Leary’s vocals and the songwriting. And she sounds genuinely stunning, and having heard her perform during our club meetings, I can attest that her voice is genuinely that amazing. It’s super soft-spoken and she absolutely sells the heartache in the lyrics. Lyrically, the song is about O’Leary still reeling from a breakup where her ex calls her saying they miss her. But O’Leary knows that her ex only misses her “when it rains”. They are clearly over her otherwise because O’Leary tried to call her ex only for her to get no reply. I really love these lines:


“I walk into a quiet bar downtown

I see you when I look around

I smile and try to catch your eye

You don’t see me and I don’t know why”


It adds a potential deeper metaphor that her ex only misses her when they have one too many drinks, thus “when it rains”. It makes the “rainy Friday night” feel really achingly sad. I feel that this song could’ve afforded to have a tad more reverb on the acoustic guitar as a barebones song like this isn’t really that easily replayable on its own. It could’ve helped further cultivate the atmosphere. I feel she’d shine best in a Billie Eilish vibe on the level of something like “What Was I Made For?”, where the atmosphere could let her delivery accent the fractured tone. As is, this is a damn incredible display of Lorin O’Leary’s talents, I give this a high 9/10. Highly recommended and I'm convinced that O'Leary continues to evolve her sound into more immersive mixes, she could create something truly special.

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