On the style of Pile

The members of Boston-based post-punk rock band Pile appear at first to be quite an unlucky cluster of humans. Singer Rick Macquire’s baldness gives way to an angular intimidation of a mustache; Drummer Kris Kuss’ plump body and furry face says, “Hi, please hug me,” and bassist Matt Becker’s longish black hair and similarly unnerving mustache give his awkward countenance a subtle exoticism. 

“Excited and anxious and nervous and stoked,” the band is off in tour journey-land to promote its newest album, “Magic Isn’t Real”—they play Athens, Ga., tonight.

Setting aside all the visual stimulants this band has to offer, let’s dissect its musical offerings. “Magic Isn’t Real” has a multitude of themes throughout the 10 tracks and half an hour of recording, including fully fleshed exhaustion of dynamism. Almost every song on this album breaks down to the most sincere of simplicities and rises, quickly and with great force, into driving, smashing beats and scream-filled distortion. For example: Toward the end of “Pets,” there’s a sweet breakdown that is at first built up with drumstick tapping and a folksy kind of guitar picking, then the bass slides in on all fours, the drums pick up momentum and BAM! The listener is smacked in the face with an epic release of a most honest humanness. 

Another theme is the dramatic-ending tactic, where it literally sounds like the band ran out of ideas and decided to randomly and abruptly end the song, mid-thought. More than three of its tracks end in such a fashion.

This record seems to be more influenced by punk rock than any of their other albums, having but one lonely pseudo-ballad and one pseudo-symphonic euphoric tune—both of which are respectively within the confines of the style of Pile. 

“Magic Isn’t Real” has a lot of similarities with the crunchy, punchy, twangy guitar thing of Modest Mouse, and riffs that are particularly and almost shamefully similar to the Pixies, like in the song “Don’t Touch Anything.” At other times, as in the songs “Came as a Glow” (a play on Modest Mouse’s “Came as a Rat”?) and “Sweat Lodge,” Becker’s bass lines play on a simplistic uninhibited catchiness that is reminiscent of Rage Against the Machine. Every song, at one point or another, releases a heart-wrenching explosion of drum-guitar-bass-vocal orgasm. So if you’re into that, this may be the album for you. 

Macquire’s vocals are so incredibly versatile that while at times he’ll sound like Issac Brock, at other times he’ll sound like Thom Yorke. He plays with slow and drawn-out drunken-sounding drone vocals as well as the deeply effective portrayal of despair that is his scream. Also in “Don’t Touch Anything,” there is a curious little ’50s-feel doowop ooh-ing chorus behind Macquire’s repetitious lead vocal line, “won’t tell a soul.” Another curious vocal embodiment is in “Away in a Rainbow!” a song like puzzle pieces, where Macquire decides to sing in a high-pitched girlish timbre, in between wretched screams, of course, and the result is slightly demonic. In “Octopus” he sings in a sliding way, sliding up to and out of each pitch, though it is hard to say if this in intentional or not. 

The final song is a one-minute and 21-second distortion-driven, double bass, glowing, moaning, fast-paced machine. Vocals wandering, drums and bass punching, guitar kickboxing, “Sweat Lodge” ends unsuspectingly quick and the listener is likely to feel a bit intoxicated, ruthlessly used or maybe just confused, whichever way the turkey wanders. 

Regardless, “Magic Isn’t Real” would be a winning record to play at a house party stuffed full of youths desiring to move their bodies until sweat permeates the very walls that surround them. Or perhaps it would make fitting background music for staring at an empty beach, alone, in a running car. ?