AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: PILE OF KNIVES — “LACERATION”

(written by Islander)

This band from the Pocono Mountains region of Eastern Pennsylvania aren’t trying to fool anyone. They call themselves Pile of Knives. They named their first EP No Light. The name of their new one is Driven By the Blade, and its cover art is a photo of meat cleavers and a gutting knife on a blood-soaked backdrop.

Their music is also unabashedly bludgeoning and brutal, and when they’re not trying to beat the living hell out of listeners, they’re furiously cutting them up and spraying the remains with acid.

Well, that’s one way of trying to capture Pile of Knives‘ amalgam of slam, death metal, beatdown hardcore, and deathcore, which invokes the legacies of such bands as Skinless, Dying Fetus, Internal Bleeding, Origin, and Through The Eyes Of The Dead, but also the likes of Crawlspace, Final Resting Place, Shattered Realm, and No Zodiac.

We’ll try out some other ways of capturing the experience in print as we discuss a song from Driven By The Blade that we’re premiering with a video today. Its name is… “LACERATION“.

photo by Giancarlo Bruno

To add a bit of background before we get to that song, Pile of Knives is a relatively recent entrant into the realms of metallic belligerence, but their origins go back to a previous band named Existence. Former members of that band — guitarist Chett Kolakoski, Lee Messerschmidt, and drummer Dylan “Pickle” Jaludi — ended a long hiatus with the creation of Pile of Knives, expanding the lineup to include bassist Jay Stromeyer and vocalist Bryan Martinez (formerly of Grimus).

On their new EP they present four mauling tracks, including the one we’re presenting today. The band introduce it this way: “‘Laceration’ is the opening track to the record, and we wanted to start it off with a slash right across your gut. Your intestines are sure to spew out as soon as the beat down parts start, which is all throughout the song.”

That’s no foolin’ either: The beatdowns happen all throughout the song, though Pile of Knives do embellish the bone-breaking trauma in other ways (some of them head-spinning, but almost none of them any more merciful).

photo by Tia X Slaughter

In listening to the song you might think the band should have named themselves Pile of Sledgehammers, that is if you’re still able to think after they’ve finished reducing your skull, your spine, and your IQ points to scattered fragments. The slamming grooves are primitive but also the stuff of modern mechanized weaponry. The atonal instrumental blows are thuggish, but interspersed with bursts of explosive percussion. It’s as if a time traveler armed a bunch of club-wielding, boulder-busting cavemen with mortars and machine-guns.

There’s madness and rage in the music too, thanks to swirling, skittering, and squealing guitars that pierce through the clubbing, and Bryan Martinez‘ gritty roars and braying howls. As the song unfolds, other facets of the music also emerge — sudden rhythmic stops and starts; equally sudden tempo changes (including an especially brutish breakdown); dismally wailing melodic accents; and further doses of nimble, spider-fingered fretwork.

As expected, the band also lacerate the listener with viciously cutting tremolo’d riffing and slashing chords, but then deliver something of a surprise — a deliriously swirling and spiraling guitar solo, which happens right before the music turns in a very dark direction, seeming to moan in an expression of bleak agony as Pile of Knives deliver a final act of especially cold and cruel pounding.

And so the song turns out to have more facets and mood changes than one might first expect. Moreover, the red-shifted video for “Laceration”, which was directed by Kurt Fowles of Sirius Cinema, gives a vivid view of what it must be like to catch these marauders on stage.

Driven By The Blade was recorded, mixed, mastered, and produced by Shaun Werle – with the drums recorded at Soundmine Recording Studio. The cover art and photography is credited to Giancarlo Bruno. In addition, the song “Kukri” features guests Anthony Bacola on acoustic guitar and Ben Karas on violin.

Driven By The Blade will be released on October 31st, and it’s available for digital pre-order now (a CD version will be available for preorder shortly through Been There Scene That Records). Following the links, we’re also including the previously released lyric videos for two more songs off the EP, “Stabbed” and “Shank.”

And last but not least, we’ll share the news that Pile of Knives are continuing to book new shows across the East Coast surrounding the release of the EP while continuing to write music, with their next release already under construction. Find current tour dates below.

PRE-ORDER:
https://pileofknives.bandcamp.com/album/driven-by-the-blade

BEEN THERE SEEN THAT:
https://linktr.ee/btstrecords
https://www.instagram.com/btstrecords
https://beentherescenethat.bigcartel.com

PILE OF KNIVES:
https://linktr.ee/pileofknives
https://www.instagram.com/pileofknivespa
https://www.youtube.com/@pileofknives

PILE OF KNIVES Live:
10/26/2025 The Sherman Theater – Stroudsburg, PA
10/30 Dingbatz – Clifton, NJ
11/08/2025 The Meatlocker – Montclair, NJ
11/14/2025 The Seven Crest – Teaneck, NJ
12/06/2025 Backroom Studios – Rockaway, NJ
1/24/2026 The Alternative Gallery – Allentown, PA