Meet Pile of Knives, a new death metal outfit based in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. Their origins go back well over a decade when guitarist Chett Kolakoski and Lee Messerschmidt played together in another band called Existence. "After a near 10-year hiatus of playing together, we finally started jamming again in late 2022," Kolakoski tells No Echo. "It didn't take long for us to realize we wanted to take it a step further and get a new band going. Fast forward a couple monthsm and whole lotta riffs later, we pulled in a friend of Lee's, Jay Stromeyer, to play bass.
"Vocally, we knew what we were looking for and thought Bryan Martinez from Grimus would be the perfect fit. Turns out he was off social media and none of us had his number, it took longer than we'd like to admit but we found him. From that point on we just got to work on demos and putting together our debut EP, No Light."
Kolakoski offers his take on the Pile of Knives sound: "When we started writing for No Light, we knew we wanted to combine our favorite aspects of bands like Through the Eyes of the Dead, Suffocation, and Dying Fetus, which is a fun way of saying we like riffs, blast beats, and slams. Take that combined with years of playing during the MySpace-era deathcore scene, you get Pile of Knives."
"The EP has a lyrical theme centered around regret, self-loathing, acknowledgement of losing control of yourself, and doing nothing to get any better," says Martinez. "We have songs featuring Guy Kozowyk of The Red Chord and Ricky Myers of Suffocation on the EP."
With No Light out on streaming outlets, Kolakoski is ready for Pile of Knives to spread their gospel. "Now that the EP is finally done, our plans are to just finally get back to playing shows and start writing for the next release. We're going to keep up this momentum and ride it till the wheels fall off."
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Pile of Knives on social media: Instagram
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