Oklahoma City band Chat Pile managed to create sizeable waves with their debut album God’s Country. They caused confusion for some of us with their spidery logo suggesting something entirely different from the music they made. Chat Pile take their band name from mounds of toxic waste and sophomore album Cool World is a reference to a largely forgotten 90s movie. Vocalist Raygun Busch advises that “Cool World covers similar themes to our last album, except now exploded from a micro to macro scale, with thoughts specifically about disasters abroad, at home, and how they affect one another”.
With Ben Greenberg (of noise rock colleagues Uniform) on mixing duties, the quartet of Raygun Busch (vocals), Luther Manhole (guitar), Stin (bass) and Cap’n Ron (drums) have created another collection of relentless rage with a uniquely blackened sound. The drums, bass and guitars all exhibit the same dryness that Steve Albini specialised in, and this really enhances and informs their sound. Whether they like it or not, Cool World is very much a hotly anticipated release. I’m pleased to inform that it lives up to expectation, and then some.
Opener ‘I Am Dog Now’ drops with a head cracking groove of massive beats and a gnarly riff. Busch shrieks and rages while you gasp for breath, such is the relentless nature of this aural attack. The thud-thud-thud-thud of the kick drum at the end of the track is seismic and drives home the message that “Everyone bleeds!”. ‘Shame’ sounds downright mellow after the opening fracas. There’s an addictive earworm of a chorus, actually reminiscent of Nirvana, the way they mix melody with noise. Though Nirvana stopped short of pulling out some guttural death metal vocals.
‘Frownland’ has an itchy bass groove that zips alongside a sampled loop of unidentifiable sounds and an all-out hip-hop beat. Busch opts for some throat shredding howls in the chorus as the guitars circle round him with a psychedelic swirl. The opening bars of ‘Funny Man’ sound like a crustier take on In Utero’s vile tones. Busch sounds exasperated as he roars “Not everyone gets to hide!”. ‘Camcorder’ opens with a stomping dirty groove that switches into a sassy almost funky set of riffs, you can really feel the bass strings vibrate such is the might of the bass playing. Busch is an oddity of a vocalist in that he either sounds unhinged or barely awake with his clean tones a dour carefree drag. This really enhances the dynamic of Chat Pile’s music as they switch from pissed off to REALLY pissed off.
The scattershot ‘Tape’ is as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof. Drums and guitars duel and fight against each other creating an uneasy atmospheric. ‘The New World’ hurtles along at breakneck pace, a moshpit inducing banger that resides at the border of noise rock and punk metal. Busch shrieks “It must have been a dream I was having, must have been all inside of my head” and you feel a deep unease at the levels of emotional release.
Sometimes the simplest riffs are the best and on ‘Masc’ the swinging groove hits the spot before another earworm chorus drops to ping itself around your head all day. ‘Milk Of Human Kindness’ is almost ballad-like as a gentle but off-kilter set of clean guitars lollop along with a nod to the twang of ‘Come As You Are’. This lasts to around the halfway mark before all hell breaks loose when the guitars ramp up with distortion and Busch completely loses his shit. Album closer ‘No Way Out’ opts for noise over melody with a staccato groove of guitar and bass before writhing riffs merge into thrash metal with consummate ease. Busch leaves us with a final manic howl/promise of “No escape! No way out!”.
Chat Pile make uncompromising music yet listen closely and you’ll find they have an underpinning nod to melody which may bring them some crossover appeal. The production and playing occasionally aligns with their band logo, which would normally be representative of a death metal band. This album reminded of the Nirvana covers album Louisiana sludge lords Thou put out. It’s closely aligned to that head wrecking blackened distortion of melody. Chat Pile are gradually gaining notoriety, and their fan base is rapidly expanding. Cool World is undoubtedly going to enhance the band’s popularity as it’s a blistering riot of noise and melody.
