Pile - Sunshine and Balance Beams - CASSETTES

A million sweaty punks can't be wrong SPIN MAGAZINE Inchthey've spent the past 16 years refining what a modern-day rock band could be... a surprisingly detailed and evocative world, just beyond the limits of rockInch PITCHFORK InchPile is one of the strangest bands in rock music, and one of the bestInch AV CLUB InchApocalypse-core stunnersInch BOSTON GLOBE Sunshine and Balance Beams, Pile's ninth album, is a Sisyphean parable concerned with labor and living. To write it, singer Rick Maguire inhabited Incha dark place,Inch wrestling with the concept that there is no enlightenment, no end to suffering. Maguire explores workaholism, the myth of meritocracy, and acceptance of mortality-all through a devilish allegory of trudging through a shadowy forest towards the uncertain dream of a bright clearing. Pile wrestles with existential and social contradictions by evoking sonic in-betweens. The music exists somewhere in the temporary equilibrium of light and shadow, chaos and order. Heated rain-like guitars, shifting drums that pave sinuous roads in sound and pace, eerie synths, and aqueous strings add to a panoramic production of loud-quiet dynamism matching the emotionality of the band's thunderous performances. The group also favored freewheeling performances that would animate the storytelling, while enlisting a string section (violins, viola, cello) to perform incandescent, through-composed arrangements co-written by cellist Eden Rayz and Pile. They drew inspiration from cinema and opera scores by Chopin, Bernard Herrmann, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, lending Sunshine a larger-than-life sound that intensifies Pile's blistering realizations of some of their most accessible songwriting to date. The recording is a noticeable leap in production value, and centers Maguire's vocals in new and exciting ways. Pile traveled to Pawtucket, RI for two weeks of tracking at Machines w