You're Better Than This
Producer Ben Brodin has clearly listened to Steve Albini’s recordings of The Jesus Lizard, and New England’s Pile must also be fans. “The World Is Your Motel” begins practically in mid-sentence, with drums pounding away in the back of the warehouse while the guitars discover riffs. The nasty assault returns in variations throughout the album, one of the better postpunk efforts to mine this territory. Singer Rick Maguire turns existence into a joke, and he’s not nearly as interested in hitting the proper notes that a more “conscientious” singer might. That’s what makes “Tin Foil Hat,” “Hot Breath,” and “Touched by Comfort” so endearing. Pile do what they want.
Recorded and mixed in October of 2014 by Ben Brodin in Studio B of Another Recording Company in Omaha, Nebraska. Mastered by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service. Artwork by Adric Giles and Ethan Long. Released by Exploding in Sound Records in March of 2015.
The Boston indie rock outfit's fifth LP is, above all, a profoundly skittish record, and the music crackles and explodes alongside frontman Rick Maguire's over-firing neurons.
Pile is a band's band. Their PR circuit is just about every other indie rock band coming out of the Boston area. They're…