Oklahoman metal band Chat Pile released its sophomore album, “Cool World,” this Friday, following up its acclaimed debut “God’s Country.”
Chat Pile is an innovative band that has been referred to as “sludge metal.” Led by vocalist and guitarist Randy Heyer, who works under the pseudonym Raygun Busch, the band has taken the underground metal scene by storm since it formed in 2019.
The four-person band is defined by its distinct sound, drawing on influences from post-punk, grunge, metal and more. Chat Pile’s unique fusion of darker riffs, heavy vocals and droning noise is meant to mimic pollution and decay, the main themes of its work. Even the band itself owes its name to lead-contaminated toxic waste known as “chat” found in mounds in the Midwest.
It’s hard not to imagine that sort of refuse and rot when listening to a Chat Pile song. The band’s music is a relentless torrent of sound that assaults the ears and numbs the senses, but not without purpose. Each lyric is a condemnation, a vision of the world succumbing to its own vice.
The album art for “Cool World” conjures the image of Bible-Belt Americana, which Chat Pile sees as the focal point of social decay. Many metal bands like Chat Pile can attribute their sound to a similarly rural origin. Rampant poverty in Louisiana and Washington conjured sludge metal, a slow and noisy style of metal music pioneered by bands like Melvins and Big Black, which Chat Pile cites among its influences.
In “Cool World,” the band ventures further into that despair, emphatically decrying the violence and corruption that the band sees in society. The opening track, “I Am Dog Now,” is filled with rage and anguish, palpably expressed through Heyer’s gruff, profanity-laden performance. Despite being purposefully abrasive, Chat Pile’s energetic drumming and catchy, albeit detuned, guitar riffs make “I Am Dog Now” a surprisingly groovy track.
“Cool World” may have some of the band’s most danceable output, although the bar wasn’t very high. Chat Pile doesn’t tend to focus on catchy melodies or lyrics, but rather on using sound to create emotions, typically negative ones. Still, the power of the group’s rhythm and hooks gives their music an almost poppy inflection.
Songs like “Shame” and “Tape” have moody progressions underscored by driving drum lines courtesy of Aaron Tackett, who uses the pen name Cap’n Ron. Even as Heyer growls and screams about the horrors of war and the “myriad ways to destroy human skin,” a hypnotic chord progression from his bandmates grounds his eccentricity and redoubles the oppressive atmosphere. His voice effectively melts into the overall texture, matching overdriven guitar tones with similarly scratchy vocals.
In the band’s characteristically aggressive fashion, the single “Funny Man” explores the concept of being a soldier, as well as the hypocrisy of recruiting children to be exploited by forces out of their control. “I gave them my flesh to write the final chapter / the blood of my sons is just a new beginning,” Heyer howls during the song’s last verse, referencing the cyclical nature of war and its victims.
Later, another standout track, “Milk of Human Kindness,” gestures at a larger sense of meaninglessness and nihilism, where “every moment we gave such meaning / is all drawings on the sides of caves in chalk.” Even outside of these evocative examples, the lyrics throughout this album are incredibly strong, albeit occasionally difficult to hear amidst the noise.
Chat Pile diverges from its previous work by making the songs on “Cool World” less focused on individual events, instead covering broader emotions and sensations.
This change may have been for the better as, unshackled from previous limitations, the lyrics on this album are a lot weightier and teeming with metaphors. The vocal and instrumental performances on “Cool World” paint a more detailed, messy and grimy picture of the world than the band’s prior work, which is often hyper-fixated on local events and singular struggles.
“Cool World” is an intriguing release from Chat Pile and indicative of the group’s maturing sound, even if the band’s style hasn’t changed much from its debut. The strength of the band’s lyrical and technical ability provides an exciting foundation for future work, and “Cool World” is likely one of many excellent releases to come.
