by Selina Yang (@y_aniles)
Hot Air Balloon continues Pile’s mastery of intricate post-hardcore, animating a skeleton of sludge with the weeping flesh of psychedelic folk. Off the heels of their latest album All Fiction, Hot Air Balloon is composed of songs left off of All Fiction’s final cut. Far from scraps, each song on Hot Air Balloon is striking enough to stand alone. This EP serves as a deeper sampler into Pile’s future sonic landscape. Adding to the depths of earlier works’ abrasive rock, Hot Air Balloon wallows in a darker timbre. The clock slows in anticipation for something on the horizon – a primordial, yet gentle, beast. Pile’s new sound is like the silky oozing flesh of an early born calf, disconcerting in its raw organicness but beautiful in its wide-eyed innocence.
Rick Maguire’s narratives toe the line between nostalgia and regret. His voice, reminiscent of Beirut’s Zach Condon, stretches forward at every note, as if trying to escape the time signature itself. On the opening track “Scaling Walls,” the instrumentals won’t let him escape. Instead, synthesizers grow from background whine into a full on howl, while buzzing guitars swell into absolution. Maguire poses the question of when “watching a film through a pinhole … does it now look different, or still like emptiness?” “Scaling Walls” recognizes nostalgia and regret as parallel experiences, rather than opposites. If nostalgia is defined as a longing for a life well lived, then regret is anger towards that time wasted. Though singing with a hint of futility, there is a determination to rewrite one’s history in optimistic terms.
The track “The Birds Attacked My Hot Air Balloon” is a dream-like dance with stoicism. Trailing after a lullaby-like melody, Maguire croons about the scene of fatality with a child-like curiosity. The story is aptly put by the song title: feathered arrows shredding cloth, bursting the air balloon into flames, while plummeting to the earth. Winding synths overlay harp plucks, with the soft bass drone purring beneath the chaos. Nevertheless, Maguire’s lyrics are only concerned with the curious objectivity of the situation: “These skies belong to them, so I begin my descent.” It’s as if he was a blank slate, unfamiliar with death or pain. It’s either a blissful rapture, or eerie dissonance. On All Fiction, Maguire was begging to see a god’s body (‘Blood’), or expressing claustrophobia under grief’s thumb (‘Neon Gray’). Pile’s abstract narratives always seem grandiose in scale. Its characters relinquish their futile control over life, and let kaleidoscopic emotion transform them into new beasts.
There is a sermon-like confidence in Maguire’s tellings. Only at the conclusion, “You Get To Decide,” does that confidence shed to reveal a soft spoken soul. He’s the stranger in the back of the bar, advising you to not repeat the same mistakes. In rhythm, the initial plucking sounds harp-like, delicately balanced by Kevin S. McMahon’s mixing. While Kris Kruss’ crashing drums sink like an anchor on each beat, the lyrics attempt to grip into a divine level of serenity. Despite best attempts, sanity slips from one’s fingers – simply because to be human is to be impassioned.
The odyssey of the album’s emotional journey mirrors that of Pile’s recent creative process: the frustration of artist’s block, the catharsis of relentless experimentation, and the reimagination of past works. In the last few years, the band has been feverish, with even more All Fiction-era tracks that didn’t fit onto either of these releases. It takes a mastering of both self discipline and feverishness in order to match the proclivity of Pile, with 10+ album releases. Inspiration may come in waves, but Pile stretches every spark to its limit.