We’ve been anticipating the arrival of Green And Gray, Pile’s follow up 2017’s A Hairshirt Of Purpose. High expectations were set with lead single “Bruxist Grin” back in March. The DIY rockers also shared the pointedly political song called “The Soft Hands Of Stephen Miller” along with a music video. Last week, Pile shared yet another single called “Hair,” which offered an entirely different and relaxed flavor. Today, we get to hear Green And Gray in full.

The album is rife with melodic insurgency. It fluctuates from seismic, blown-out riffs to opposite extremes of quiet calm, creating a cerebral anxiety that comes and goes. Songs like “Your Performance” have this eerie, lulling feeling, and once you’ve adjusted to that discomfort, a heavy kick drum thrusts the song into an entirely different tempo. “Hiding Places” is a superbly rewarding seven-plus-minute brawl with swelling interspaces that swallow any air not occupied by fuzz and lunging bass work.

According to frontman Rick Maguire, the feelings of anxiety and existentialism were byproducts self-discovery and examination. Here he is with more on the album:

I’m just trying to figure out where I’m at with the whole thing. Living like this never ceases to be strange. I’m doing exactly what I want to do and I love it very much, that’s stayed there for me, but I’m just watching things change around me as I go. I’m a mid 30s guy on that line, and these are my own emotional observations on those feelings. I put a lot of energy into making these things that are about, on some level, how I feel, but the feelings themselves are like riddles, so the songs are the best answers I can come up with. I put a lot of myself into it. I think it’s a good honest piece of work.

Stream Green And Gray below.

Green And Gray is out 5/3 via Exploding In Sound. Get it here.