A Giant Dog - Pile

Pitchfork 82

Some of the best hard rock songs give little glimpses of a soft, damaged heart beating beneath all the rage. Think about that little bit of major chord respite offered by the "when you're high, you never ever wanna come down" part of "Welcome to the Jungle" or the "I've been to the edge, and there I stood and looked down" monologue of "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love." These gentle flashes invite you into dangerous orbits, despite their narrators' warnings, with an illusion of safety that makes you overlook the whole "and you're gonna diiiiiiie" part. On Pile, which is A Giant Dog's third official full-length, the Austin band mix moments of sweetness with a whole lot of "and you're gonna diiiiiiie."

The first refrain we hear from singers Sabrina Ellis and Andrew Cashen says it all: "But I love you, honey/Stay away from me/Tenderness is not for me/I could watch you die and not feel a thing." Every track is a similar mix of certain danger and uncertain asylum. Five of the album's 15 tracks deal explicitly with death, mostly with a nonchalance that has been a hallmark of rock ‘n’ roll since Bo Diddley bragged that he was just 22 and didn’t mind dying. In the catchy chorus of the first single, "Sex & Drugs," Ellis and Cashen sing, "I’m too old to die young," their voices stuck together in honeyed harmony against distorted guitars, a swinging rhythm section, and plinking "Crocodile Rock" piano boogie. Later in that song, they rattle off a list of the self-imposed harm they have survived, including "all the people we fucked, and all the hippies who sucked, and all the hearts that we broke, and all the liquor and coke."

That the songs dwell so much on mortality feels like a way of acknowledging grief rather than ignoring it, even if they're dealing with it in a depraved way, using juvenile humor to process fear. (At one point in "Too Much Makeup," they suggest that you "get reborn as a tampon when you die.") Many of the songs on Pile might feel more offensive if the hooks weren't so strong, and if Ellis didn't have amazing pipes. But the combination of pretty melodies and the ugliest of realities is what drives Pile: it feels like the playlist for a rock-bottom party, made by people who are in a bad place, taking the opportunity to celebrate it before rising above it. They sing and play with the enthusiasm of a last hurrah. It's a rare cocktail that mixes sloppy punk passion with precision, but A Giant Dog have both working for them.

Mike McCarthy, who has produced albums for Spoon, in addition to A Giant Dog's less adventurous 2013 LP, Bone, helps make the morbid mood festive, capturing the band's blend of punk rock and glam, and bringing out a performance from the two singers whose energy betrays the jaundiced lyrics. Yes, it's often nasty, but it's also funny. When Ellis sings about a friend who’s an undertaker, who comes home smelling of "formaldehy-eeee-iiiiide," it's clear that she's having fun. Ellis and Cashen also play together in a poppier band called Sweet Spirit, which is also true to its name, and not as dangerous or dirty as A Giant Dog. It’s like with A Giant Dog they've found an outlet to unload all of their basest instincts, so Sweet Spirit can stay sweet.

In "Get With You and Get High," the band are joined by fellow Austin musician and unlikely bedfellow Britt Daniel. Aside from his past collaborations with producer McCarthy, Daniel is also responsible for bringing A Giant Dog to the attention of Merge Records: the label that released much of Spoon’s most celebrated work. His croaky hangover baritone meshes well with Ellis and Cashen, and the track would be A Giant Dog at their most vulnerable, were the desire for personal intimacy not masked by the desire to get wasted. But beneath all of this nihilism is some real skilled songwriting that includes complex rhyme schemes, swaggering rhythms, and stunning harmonies. These qualities are perhaps strongest on Pile's final track, "Failing in Love," where Ramones guitars buzz and lock in with the drum stops and an improbable sax. The words, which seem to detail a divorce, are perhaps the clearest reason for the obsession with death, danger, and keeping affection at bay. "I've tried and grown tired of failing in love," sing Ellis and Cashen, and it’s so simple and honest that you just want to get close to them, despite the band's countless cautions against doing so.