All Fiction

"I want to do what makes me feel like a kid: experimenting, having fun, and trying to discover new things about this work," says Pile's Rick Maguire about All Fiction. It's his band's eighth record, and one that finds the ambitious group assembling it's most texturally complex material yet-despite the fraught inspiration underscoring it's restive lyrics. Alongside the blistering drums and scorched-earth riffs that first galvanized Pile's dedicated fanbase, the band has incorporated elegiac strings, mystifying vocal corrosions, and haunting synths. From the creeping fear of cinematic opener "It Comes Closer" to the euphorically ascending keys on ego-shattering closer "Neon Gray," All Fiction is an ornate, carefully paced study on the subjectivity of perception, the data-shaping despotism of big tech, and the connections between anxiety and death. In it's most vital moments, it's also a resolute recommitment to the restorative significance of art and imagination.A1. It Comes Closer A2. Loops A3. Gardening Hours A4. Link Arms A5. Blood B6. Lowered Rainbow B7. Forgetting B8. Poisons B9. Nude With A Suitcase B10. Neon Gray