Pile: Hot Air Balloon EP

A Pile live show is like a reunion for friends you didn’t know you had. Like-minded strangers obsessed in picking apart Rick Maguire’s narratives as songs are feverishly sung in unison with Pile’s leading force.

What started out as Maguire’s solo project has projected far behind that over the past two decades, and now backed by the behemoth rhythm section of Alex Molini (bass) and Kris Kuss (drums), few bands across the world can match Pile’s jaw-dropping intensity.

Last year’s All Fiction marked a first for Pile – an album recorded largely to click track, and the results were a swift departure from the brawny punk/ post-hardcore aesthetic which has seen the band deliver some of the most vital records in this space(2010’s Magic Isn’t Real and 2012’s Dripping).

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Still, Pile’s severely underrated 2019 cut, Green and Gray, hinted that a move like the one taken on All Fiction would come at some point, and the more time spent in its company, the more it feels like all the best moments of Pile illuminated throughout its 42 minutes.

And while the Hot Air Balloon EP consists of leftovers from those recording sessions, such as the seamless nature of this release, you instantly wonder what All Fiction would have been like had these tracks been included on it. Not a stretch of the imagination considering Green and Gray contained 13 songs.

Take the opening song, Scaling Walls. A track that is quintessential Pile, with sparkling rhythm shifts as Maguire’s abstract lyricism remains positively ambiguous (“Watching a film through a pin hole and it imitates suspense / Disbelief / Relief / Consequence”).

Birds Attacked My Hot Air Balloon follows and is as mysteriously beautiful as its title suggests. Brimming with heady atmospheres, in all its carefully crafted and skeletal majesty, it’s up there with the most tender songs Maguire has written.

Then there’s Only for A Reminder. A song that feels inspired by the reworks of Songs Know Together, Alone. That is until Kuss’ thunderous percussion emerges like object exploding through a wall. Kuss’ work from behind the kit underpinned All Fiction, and here his performance remains vital to Pile’s sonic foundation.

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The hypnotic effect of Exists Meandering radiates with the same feeling of Green and Gray’s hallmark moments, while finishing with the ominous burst of incongruous proto-rock in You Get to Decide, it’s the moment that encapsulates the Pile experience. That feeling and effect that only Pile’s glorious noise can muster.

Maguire is one of the few masters in indie-rock who can navigate seamlessly between beauty and brutality, and it all makes for a thrilling uncertainty. It’s what makes Pile what they are, and while the modern-day landscape of guitar-based music continues to produce a swathe of watered-down sound-a-likes, Pile’s ability to continuously stray from the path makes them one of most pivotal voices in this milieu. Hot Air Balloon is another shining example of that.

Hot Air Balloon is out now via Exploding In Sound. Purchase from Bandcamp.