Boston’s PILE work somewhere in that zone between punk and hard rock, a zone occupied by some of their probable influences: Nirvana, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr., etc. And, they do it better than any band I’ve heard working around that place in a long time. Riffs, and hooks, and melodies carrying twisted lyrics whizz by in the maelstrom of both their recordings and their live show. These gentlemen are a few recordings in already and they just generally don’t have bad songs. If you like to bang your head AND come away with a melody, then really you can’t do much better. Their full length from a while ago MAGIC ISN’T REAL is an explosive and volatile mixture of insanely loud bursts of noise and energy mixed with some of the gentlest, and prettiest rock passages you could imagine. “Uncle Jill” from that record is a prefect example of this PILE duality. It starts off slow and melencholy, and is brought to an insane max out of energy and vocal intensity before you even know what’s happening. More recently these 3 men(one of which runs one of Boston’s best speakeasys) released an EP called BIG WEB SEVEN INCH. Three tracks of continuing to kill it. “Afraid of Home” takes these guys to a somewhat more pop place. The pace of the song never let’s up, and they give us a mini-guitar solo, and a wonderful melodic hook in just over a minute. Seriously catch these guys soon. They are always on tour, but they play around Boston on the regular when they are here. If some of the larger music periodicals in this city had any idea what was going on this band would be a real big deal.