On “Nude with a Suitcase,” the ninth track on Pile’s All Fiction, singer-guitarist Rick Maguire paints a haunting picture: “Dimly lit against deep violet curtains/And pale eyes sunken against flesh that is sure as a fog.” Through the years, the Boston-bred indie rockers have chronicled their share of absurd happenings in surreal, often obtuse lyrics, from spiders crawling into orifices on 2012’s “Bump a Grape,” to musings on life as a worm on 2017’s aptly titled “Worms.” The band’s new album sees them delve even deeper into cryptic symbolism, even as Maguire allows himself unprecedented vulnerability.
Pile continues to find emotional openness in the abstract. Their sound embodies numerous contradictions, what with All Fiction’s lush beauty coexisting alongside the group’s characteristically chaotic songwriting throughout. And while there are frequent, abrupt rhythm changes on the album, the songs never seem at risk of spinning out of control.
“It Comes Closer” kicks the album off with richly textured atmospherics, a beautiful string arrangement, and subdued percussion. There are only brief glimpses of Maguire’s signature howl on the track, as he mostly lets his voice nestle into the gorgeous instrumental. Instead, he saves his first loud yelps for the next track, the claustrophobic “Loops,” whose driving post-punk beat and occasionally deadpan vocals recall the tense art rock of Protomartyr. “Tell me are you being honest?” asks Maguire, briefly revealing some insecurity amid the otherwise intensely surreal lyrics about a roomful of floating umbrellas.
The quirky synths that open the whimsical “Lowered Rainbow” bear no immediate sonic resemblance to anything else in Pile’s oeuvre, but things begin to feel a little more familiar when drummer Kris Kuss comes in with a tumbling beat. The song’s emotional register scans as distinctly uncanny, amplified by the ominous tone of the lyrics. “Death dealer enters in white gloves, palms open,” Maguire croons. “‘Tell us all we’re right/And with a straight face, the dealer obliged.” It’s not always apparent what the words are getting at, and the few moments of specificity tend to only open up more questions, and tantalizingly so.
The range of styles and dynamics that the trio effortlessly command throughout the album—and sometimes within a single song—is remarkable. The nervy ode to horticulture “Gardening Hours,” for instance, contrasts its crisp, detailed production with a sudden low-fidelity interlude. Similarly, the meandering “Link Arms” gently sways between synthesizer drones and a vocal effect that sounds as if it’s been lifted from a 1950s sci-fi flick.
Even the more low-key cuts are marked by a skittishness that’s uniquely conveyed through sheer volume and intricately rendered existential anguish. “Blood” features a raw, emotionally naked vocal turn, with Maguire’s distinctive voice aided solely by his cryptic finger-picked guitar as he ponders phenomenology: “I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s been a joke the whole time/That our brains are playing pranks…But I’m still unconvinced that not even nothing exists.”
Pile has earned their standing as cult favorites through relentless touring and their commitment to their DIY ethos. Their unwillingness to resort to cheap pop gestures stands out in an era where few acts even bother to cloak their crass commercialism. But above all stands the music, and All Fiction—the title of which is a reference to our culture’s increasingly fractured ideas of what constitutes truth—marks yet another extraordinary entry in the band’s discography.
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