Pile: Sunshine and Balance Beams

“Calls out and draws me in / Says the same thing each time / I still can’t make it out” sings Rick Maguire on An Opening, one of the many fierce snapshots on Pile’s ninth full-length release, Sunshine and Balance Beams. While An Opening is about Maguire wrestling with the notion of what it means to be an artist in 2025 – namely money and “moving things forward” – on the flipside, if one takes certain parts of it literally, then it couldn’t be further from the truth.

In many ways, it’s what Pile don’t say through their songs which sparks the greatest intrigue. Maguire’s songcraft, filled with protagonists that are forever searching, leaving things open to interpretation. Even the title to their latest album has its own mind-bending qualities. Sunshine and Balance Beams, feels very Pile.

The Boston band has never accomplished two things: making the same record twice and mediocrity. The might and power of Maguire’s songs are, at times, like experiencing an anxiety attack. His songs, moving to dark corners, but each time they guide us there in different ways. Over the years it’s been down to Maguire building the parts around him – namely his band, and alongside Kris Kuss (drums, auxiliary percussion), Alex Molini (bass, synth, Rhodes, piano) and latest member, Matt Connery (guitar), on Sunshine and Balance Beams, Pile marry up malice and tenderness as well as they ever have.

The album is built around a series of firsts. Making the move from mainstay New York label Exploding In Sound to Sooper Records, Maguire adds new dimensions via a six-piece string section that moves in and out of these songs with grace. These embellishments aren’t the giant leap to take things to the “next level”, though. It’s still very much the same Pile, but even more refined and devastating, as these additions form new emotional weight to the band’s remit.

Led by Deep Clay and A Loosened Knot. Vintage Pile that is like walking batter and bruised through a hell-storm. Packing the punch and ferocity of the band’s Dripping-era, with all rhythms, grooves and hairpin turns, Maguire’s knife edge narratives are David Berman-esque. And backed by one of the most vital rhythm sections in the current post-hardcore pantheon, Kuss and Molini, create the kind of friction these songs demand.

In a woozy, synth blur, Bouncing in Blue feels like a lost gem from the Green and Gray sessions. With lush strings slowly rising from the mix, it has all the emotional power of a Spiritualized song, until the intensity is too much to bear, suddenly exploding like a powder keg with noise and rancour that matches the preceding two tracks.

Holds possesses similar hypnotic powers that may have been inspired by Maguire’s Nashville surroundings from the earlier in the decade, and alongside guest vocalist, Candace Clement, Pile reach deeper into the well for the album’s most heartfelt moment. In true fashion, a total contrast to Born at Night. With Kuss’ machine-like drumming and a series of swooping strings, Maguire parts his most biting performances (“If there’s no room for cowards now/ Then who the fuck are you?”), his delivery akin to spitting glass.

Meanwhile Outside combines the two, as Pile juxtapose the crunching groans with hushed, tender passages. It’s Jekyll and Hyde-like, as Pile swing from post-hardcore to folk, resulting in the album’s shining beacon. As Maguire parts with the telling line, “Death comes / In all shapes / You gеt dissolved / In space / And finally you can relate”,  it’s an unadulterated epic as Pile excavate to the depths that lead closer to their true core.

If Meanwhile Outside is the apex moment of Sunshine and Balance Beams, then Carrion Song runs it a close second. With a line like, “Let them feed on me / My offering in death / Monument to nothingness”, it underlines the existential dread that Maguire has fed off for all these years. Sonically, it’s orchestral rock but not in bombastic ways. Pile never lose their true grit, thanks to the work from behind the soundboards from Seth Manchester, who harnesses the band’s sound as good as anyone ever has, making their expansiveness mirror the realities of their songs.

Existentialism has always been the focal point of the Pile experience, and as Maguire tries to unpick life’s complexities through tenderness, he realises full well that it won’t do. The only way to succeed is to blow it up by force, and it’s this quiet / loud, split personality-like persona of modern-era Pile that is their most exciting. And Sunshine and Balance Beams is the finest representation of this so far.  

Sunshine and Balance Beams is out now via Sooper Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.