Tales For The Rages
Piebald
Tales For The Rages is Piebald’s first full‑length album in nineteen years, a 13‑track burst of emo‑meets‑indie‑rock written and recorded between 2019 and 2025 after the Massachusetts band reunited in 2016. The record reintroduces their hyper‑articulate punk‑ish energy with opener “Still On The Couch,” which turns familiar lethargy and pandemic‑era home‑stuckness into a jolt of optimism that pushes listeners to get off the sofa and back into the world. Across its 36‑minute runtime, the album folds together power‑chord anthems, tangled guitar lines, and communal singalongs, all delivered with the self‑aware humor, massive hooks, and emotional candor that made Piebald cult favorites in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
Lyrically, Tales For The Rages is a record about aging, friendship, and trying to live ethically inside systems that feel increasingly hostile. Songs like “This Thing Is Old” acknowledge the band’s and their fans’ advancing years, but instead of wallowing, they celebrate decades of shared art, memories, and connection; “Used To Good Advantage” pushes this further into explicit working‑class solidarity, calling for power to students, workers, and those who aren’t free. Reviewers have emphasized how the album’s disappointment in governments, wealth worship, and indifference to suffering is counterbalanced by a stubborn hopefulness, turning “tales for the rages” into a mission statement: these songs are meant as living stories, grooves, and pages that invite listeners to look honestly at the present, cherish their communities, and keep pushing for something better.
Tales For The Rages
Piebald
Tales For The Rages is Piebald’s first full‑length album in nineteen years, a 13‑track burst of emo‑meets‑indie‑rock written and recorded between 2019 and 2025 after the Massachusetts band reunited in 2016. The record reintroduces their hyper‑articulate punk‑ish energy with opener “Still On The Couch,” which turns familiar lethargy and pandemic‑era home‑stuckness into a jolt of optimism that pushes listeners to get off the sofa and back into the world. Across its 36‑minute runtime, the album folds together power‑chord anthems, tangled guitar lines, and communal singalongs, all delivered with the self‑aware humor, massive hooks, and emotional candor that made Piebald cult favorites in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
Lyrically, Tales For The Rages is a record about aging, friendship, and trying to live ethically inside systems that feel increasingly hostile. Songs like “This Thing Is Old” acknowledge the band’s and their fans’ advancing years, but instead of wallowing, they celebrate decades of shared art, memories, and connection; “Used To Good Advantage” pushes this further into explicit working‑class solidarity, calling for power to students, workers, and those who aren’t free. Reviewers have emphasized how the album’s disappointment in governments, wealth worship, and indifference to suffering is counterbalanced by a stubborn hopefulness, turning “tales for the rages” into a mission statement: these songs are meant as living stories, grooves, and pages that invite listeners to look honestly at the present, cherish their communities, and keep pushing for something better.