Pile – Cup (Stream)

by Steven Spoerl

It’s been a while since anything went up on these pages and there are a lot of reasons behind yet another interim but, as ever, the work continues to be done behind the scenes. Five posts were scheduled to go up before that break and will be going live today. This is one of those posts.

Few bands have earned the type of reverence among its listeners and contemporaries as Pile. Intricate, winding, dynamic compositions have brought them unending admiration and made their discography staggeringly dense, which is something that Odds and Ends addresses. A record that compiles the band’s 7″ releases, compilation contribution, and other assorted castoffs, Odds and Ends serves as something of a career summation and testament.

“Cup” is the record’s lone new, unreleased original track and it’s as unwieldy, tense, and breathtakingly go-for-broke as anything in the band’s towering catalog. After what many see as the best release of the band’s storied DIY-centric career, “Cup” is another bracing reminder that Pile are still on an ascending trajectory, suggesting that they may never truly hit a genuine peak. Raucous, intelligent, and deceptively subtle, “Cup” is the exact brand of brilliance we’ve come to except from what several have breathlessly hailed as the best band in the world.

Listen to “Cup” below and pre-order Odds and Ends from Exploding In Sound here.