Review: Pile | You're Better Than This

There is an eternal unease, a sort of yearning discomfort (or is it a discomfited yearning?), that permeates the music of Boston post-punk titans Pile. Among the foursome's greatest strengths has been the ability to sew that rankled unease into the lining of each of its songs, imbuing each one with a nakedly human dimension that would seem pretty un-rock 'n' roll were it not for the fact that Pile (higher power-of-your-own-choosing bless Pile) hits the sweet spot where power meets smarts as hard as any act since, say, Jane's Addiction released Nothing's Shocking. The throbbing vitality of Pile's music elevates and even celebrates its unease, and never more perfectly than on its agile and potent new full-length You're Better Than This.

What makes You're Better Than This distinct from the band's previous releases (including 2012's towering Dripping, which we reviewed for another publication here) is an adventurous, elastic production and mix. Fronter and guitarist Rick Maguire's opaque, often inscrutable lyrics are levied in palpable Jon Spencer-esque slap-back, the guitars are firmly panned to the edges of the stereo field, and a big, boisterous ambient room sound is pushed up into the mix, amplifying the dynamics of a band already well known for its crushing shock and awe. The more fluid production and a relative dialing back of viscous sludge and distortion lets the music feel lighter on its feet, at fighting weight. You can feel it in the beautiful, 94-second acoustic guitar ballad "Fuck The Police," in the playful opening of the whirling, deconstructed waltzer "Waking Up In The Morning," and straight through to the giddy rush of the album's hidden final tune "Rock 'N' Roll Forever With the Customer in Mind," perhaps a curt nod to Mr. Maguire's day job.

The set opens with the uneven gallop of "The World Is Your Motel," whose immediate, tilting kineticism gives the feeling that one has caught You're Better Than This in medias res -- in the midst of an airing of acute grievances -- or even in flagrante delicto; the tune's cataclysmic final 50 seconds are ignited by one of many soul-searing howls emitted by Maguire over the course of the record. That stentorian yowl, Kris Kuss' explosive drumming, the massive but impressively controlled riffage: indeed, all the hallmarks of a Pile record are present here.

It would be enough for us if You're Better Than This was comprised solely by its (credited) devastating closing number "Appendicitis." The long tune offers a perfect balance of the grace and, ahem, balls that Pile musters with impressive regularity (we'd say ease, but recent interviews confirm our feeling that Maguire would tell us there's nothing easy about it, were we to ask). As the relatively gentle tune crosses the four-minute mark it seems to swallow Maguire whole, as his vocals sink deep into the skeins of guitar lines just ahead of the song's terminus under some final, chunky chords. You're Better Than This was recorded in Omaha and produced by Ben Brodin, whose production credits do not include work with JSBX or Shellac, but do include Conor Oberst, Seahaven and, weirdly, Jazon Mraz.

Exploding In Sound released You're Better Than This on vinyl, CD, cassette and as a digital download today, and you can purchase the record in any of those formats right here. Stream the entire record via the embed below. Pile is now officially on tour forever; click here to see when they stop by to bring its moveable feast to your mom's house. Dinner is served.

Pile: Facebook | Internerds

Today's Hotness: Pile, Leapling, Odessey & Oracle

>> Oh, hey, we're back. We missed you, too. How's your mom? Are you working the same place? Your hair got long...

>> Happy new year, and happy new Pile. Stereofork got the nod yesterday for an exclusive on the Boston grunge titans' terrific new track "#2 Hit Single" -- taken from the forthcoming set You're Better Than This (let's just let that title hang there meaningfully for a second... maybe a second more...) -- and in doing so perpetuated the irritating trend of large music publications being more about firsties than journalism. Had Pantsgum bothered to do 10 minutes of research (we get it, music writing is hard, guys), it could have told you that the reason the preview tune is called "#2 Hit Single" is because the title "Number One Hit Single" was already used. Indeed, that tune appeared on Pile's wonderful 2010 LP Magic Isn't Real; you can hear it right here or at the embed below. "#2 Hit Single" -- also embedded below -- echoes the slashing rhythm of the earlier tune's opening guitar riff, but inverts the melodic elements as it introduces a call-and-response between fronter Rick Maguire's vocal and the annihilating instrumentation of the verse. The aggressive jam abruptly ends after 145 seconds, and then is gone into the proverbial night like a deranged mugger. Pile's new record You're Better Than This will be issued March 3 as part of a Exploding In Sound's exceptionally strong first quarter release schedule, which also includes bugcore heroes Krill's powerful A Distant Fist Unclenching. Pile's newest was recorded in Omaha and features electrifying and hyper-roomy production that recalls the biting sound of early Jon Spencer Blues Explosion records, and we think Clicky Clicky readers are going to find a lot to like on it, particularly the wild, rootsier sound of tunes like "Fuck The Police" and the ambitious, awe-inspiring closer "Appendicitis." Pre-order You're Better Than This on vinyl, CD or cassette via Pile's Bandcamp wigwam right here.



>> December seems like a bad time to promote an album. Not only is there an endless round of "Best of 2014" lists and year-end nostalgia, but nearly everyone is on vacation and not listening to some great new indie rock. In jeopardy of being lost in the late-year shuffle were certain late-season singles from Brooklyn four-piece guitar poppers Leapling, whose album Vacant Page is seeing a February 10th vinyl co-release via Inflated Records and the mighty, aforementioned Exploding In Sound. Big news, right? The second single "Silent Stone," released around the holidays, is a stone-cold killer cut of spacey, free-jazz guitar rock. "What have I been told? / Leave me in the cold" sings guitarist Dan Arnes in a soft, plain-spoken, everyman voice that brings to mind Death Cab For Cutie, albeit sans the excessive verbiage. That confused sense of resolution wraps itself around the song, guiding what are at first surfy guitar lines that mutate into bum-note guitar solos and pick scrapes that dance around tight, trained hi-hat work. Best of all is a breakdown at the two-minute mark, where the bassist has a chance to shine with oblong chops. The lead guitar channels Wilco's avant string mangling circa A Ghost Is Born, while the complex, steady chords ground the exposition. Perhaps best of all, Leapling is a hard band to define, and that’s what makes them special. Consider the act a crucial addition to EIS' stable. The first 150 copies of the vinyl edition of Vacant Page come on colored splatter vinyl, so don't sleep on this promising album. Pre-order the set from Inflated Records right here. -- Edward Charlton



>> Man, how this writer digs indie rock ambition. Take, for instance, the recent inbox find of France's Odessey & Oracle, a baroque-pop unit whose namesake is The Zombies' 1968 masterwork (the misspelled "odyssey" is also an homage, to the poor grammar of The Zombies' original album art artist). The French outfit's latest album Odessey & Oracle and the Casiotone Orchestra is a lofty, lo-fi love letter to the over achieving '60s pop scene, one that (thankfully) pays tribute without the wholesale recycling of old sounds. Out on vinyl and CD via Carton Records, the album is a technicolor trip that highlights the arrangement genius of those original bands while guiding the sound somewhere new. "I'll be floating far into dreams" they sing on opener "2016," which shapes ukulele strums into a progressive dream-pop track. While the cheesy-sounding synths may startle at first, they ultimately add to a pleasant home-grown vibe -- inadvertently recalling the playful, Casiotone genius of The Unicorns in the process. Album cut "Esprit Du Ciel" applies the band's native tongue to lush male vocal harmonies, while "Alphabet" and "Fixing The World" tone things down via gentle female that defuse the more complex and classical analog synth work of tracks including "Invention #7." Wide-eyed, accomplished, orchestrated and in love with an era that deserves the attention, Odessey & Oracle and the Casiotone Orchestra is not only a fun addition to the baroque-pop canon, but a great reminder of what made that scene so special. Order the album right here. -- Edward Charlton

Clicky Clicky Mini-festo: Certain Minor Axioms Of Indie Awesomeness

Folks who really know their way around the Internetses are likely familiar with Cute Overload's objective Rules Of Cuteness, which turn on such things as ear size and -- in the case of the newly inaugurated Rule #38 -- belly roundness. We've long pondered a similar set of axioms for indie rock, although our criteria are so subjective that it doesn't make sense to apply them on the macro level that Cute Overload does. All the same, there are at least several things we take a lot of enjoyment from in indie rock, and they are 1) when a band namechecks itself (the most prominent aspect of an often entertaining universe of meta references to a song being performed), 2) when lyrics mention the act of listening to records or the radio, 3) when singers plead for the object of their affections to change his or her mind and it seems pretty clear that is not going to happen, and 4) the ludicrously over-loud sonic element.

A band can garner style points with specifically clever application of an axiom. For example, the first two words of dearly departed indie rock supergeniuses Haywood's sublime "Take An Inventory" are quite purposefully "Hey would..." Sticking with the 'Wood, one of the more entertaining applications of Axiom #1 is the first line to the relatively rare rocker "Alpenland," which opens with "Calling down to base camp this is Ted..." Readers of yesterday's post regarding Johnny Foreigner know the trio's forthcoming b-side also hits our first axiom. The Concretes' "On The Radio" fairly bluntly satisifies the requirements of our Axiom #2, but of course the grandaddy of this rule is The Replacements' consistently electrifying and dizzyingly poignant "Left Of The Dial." Or maybe The Modern Lovers' "Road Runner." Axiom #3, the sad little rule that nurses a beer quietly at the end of the bar, is found in the indie wild more more often than you'd expect. Our favorite manifestation is in Lilys' peerless classic "Claire Hates Me," but of course there is always the upbeat Sugar tune "If I Can't Change Your Mind." For Axiom #4, we usually think of the ridiculously loud "YOU!" in Dinosaur Jr.'s cover of "Just Like Heaven," or most of the guitar solos on Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Extra Width, although it's sadly been years since we've heard that record. Anyway, we'll try to point out these various axioms when they come up in the future. Enjoy these MP3s.

Haywood -- "Alpenland" -- Self-Portrait comp [our version is an unmastered pre-release ca. 1997]
Lilys -- "Claire Hates Me" -- In The Presence Of Nothing [still sadly out of print]
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[buy Haywood and Lilys recordings from Insound here and here]