Rile – Pessimist (Recommendation)

Side-projects of bands you love are mostly pleasant surprises. Known people put in another constellation creating more stuff you’ll surely love. Sam Richards (bassist of Cult Leader) founded Rile in 2012 with him on guitar and long-time friends Brian Fell on drums and Matt Mascarenas on bass. Now, more than ten years into their existence, they gave birth to their full-length Pessimist.

Mixed by THE MAN of good sounding Hardcore himself, Kurt Ballou, Pessimist is exactly what you would think a record this feral should sound. “Dead End” showcases everything from fast paced rage, punishing mid tempo and the distorted in-between. The following “Climb Out” cut the same vein even deeper and sends the listeners into oblivion with its entity-crushing mosh-part.

But it would sell them short, to reduce Rile to “just” rage. Rile really shine when they dwell in sludgy waters like in “Hidden from Light” or the Doom-esque “Stone Tapes“. The last third of the album, “Half Love” and “Pessimist“, grinds everything from Rock, Hardcore, Punk and Metal together in a dirty blender to provide a full peeling of at least three layers of skin.

Rile are a beast of the same breed as Cult Leader or Trap Them but its habitat is a different one. While the latter would tend more to the dark and maybe cold surroundings, Rile like to boil in the heat. Pessimist is what it would sound like lying in the sun on sharp edged rocks. Expand your possibilities to endure challenging music and get pessimistic when it comes to other heavy genre-bending records this great in 2023.