Having Pile play in-studio at WVAU was incredible, but their level of skill and musical precision came as no surprise to any of us. The real treat came when Pile asked if they could split the set time with their tour mates, Fax Holiday. There was no problem with each band doing a set but never did I expect to be so blown away.

Fax Holiday is a band from Allston, MA, with heavy rock instrumentation and thoughtful lyricism. I noticed that despite only having three members, Fax Holiday managed to create an extremely full sound. I was shocked at first that they did not have a bass player, but with the lead singer switching between guitar and auto-harp, the music retained a definitive and engaging lower register. Fax Holiday’s songs sound loose, lethargic and lagging, but only in the best of ways. Poignant guitar and vocal strain run rampant, giving each song an almost unbearably sincere sense of longing and reach.

The first song they played, “Lots of Glass,” blew me away from the very first second. An autoharp provides an interesting chord structure and the guitar takes on the role of bass (for the intro anyway) as the song grows. The auto-harp chords repeat with a snare-kick beat beneath. My favorite part of this song was the final portion, which consisted of breathy vocals, frantic cymbals and quietly entropic guitar.

One of the cuts they played, “Chameleon,” blends gritty, churning guitars with slow melancholy lyrics. The beat builds and then explodes as the mantra “no need to be so upset” is sung and screamed over it. The power behind the second part of this song was mind blowing. Both of the aforementioned songs are found on the demo they left with us in the studio.

The final song they played was a song that they referred to as “Sad Song.” It is not on any of their releases but will most likely be on their forthcoming record (no release date has been set). Great coinciding guitar and auto-harp chords layer each other during the chorus and digress to a sparser sound during the verse. As always, the lyrics are delivered with a grueling sense of paradoxical urgency and restraint, making them all the more salient.

These guys were even better later that night at Desperado’s, spewing raw power and energy, and bursting with incredibly unique, emotion-laden music. It’s just a matter of time until Fax Holiday become a college radio standard.