- Joined
- Sep 1, 2025
- Messages
- 35,786
- Solutions
- 276
- Online time
- 10h 36m
- Reputation
- 112,019
What happens when you mix 4 Oklahoma natives, Daughters, Big Black and Godflesh influences and the atrocities of our world ? You get Chat Pile, one of the most necessary metal bands of this decade.
Chat Pile is a sludge metal band coming from the Oklahoma scene who made some heads turn with their "Remove Your Skin Please" EP in 2019. This EP would be representative of their very nightmarish and intense sound they will develop in their career.
With "God's Country" released in 2022, the band assembled 9 tracks that are all equally terrifyingly real with themes centered around capitalistic greed, substance abuse, grim depections of murders and mental illnesses.
"Slaughterhouse" kicks this album off with industrial drums before Raygun screams "Hammers and grease" which lets the way for horror-like guitars and a bassline so deeps it reaches the core of the earth. Lyrically quite a bit of body horror is on display but the most mesmerizing lyrics are in the end with "There's more screaming than you'd think" and "You never forget their eyes". A very strong and stomach churning start to this album.
"Why" is all about the problem of homelessness and Raygun "sings" about this so passionately, which is appropriate since it's a societal problem that tends to get overlooked. Why are people made to live outside ? We got the ressources, we got the needs. This single question "Why ?" is repeated throughout the song to make you understand there's no reason we got to dehumanize people to the point of throwing them outside and then blame them of their condition with personal failures when homeless is in itself a failure of the state. "Real American horror story", we entertain ourselves with horror stories with silly monsters to ignore the real horrors living under our nose. I also love how the track builds in intensity as it progresses on the lyrical, vocal and instrumental front.
(Little anecdote : While I was typing about this song on a park bench while listening to it, a homeless man came to me to ask me for money. Bought him an orange juice and gave him money for his bus. Believe it or not, that's an insane coincidence.)
The gothic breather "Pamela" follows with dreamy guitars and a more post-punk flair. Raygun on this track leaves the manic shouts for more melodic vocals which is more fitting for the instrumentals. He sings in the perspective of Pamela Voorhees, the mother of Jason Voorhees after learning his son drowned. A lot of guilt and loss is expressed in this track, which makes it very depressive. The "Waiting to die" chorus is also very haunting. However, I think the album doesn't need a breather this early in the tracklist and I think Raygun doesn't play much into his strengths as a vocalist, which makes the track a bit tedious around the 3 minutes mark. Although the "Resurrect my son" shouts at the back end are absolutely bloodchilling.
A groovy bassline makes way for a weirdly danceable sludge instrumental as Raygun rambles about lyrical descriptions of substance abuse and paranoia in "Wicked Puppet Dance". The "God's Eyes Teeth Lips Red Fuck Death Cum" chorus is one of my favorites on the whole album. The nightmarish thought of not owning your body anymore and being played like a puppet by the itch of the high is something that personally terrifies me. An absolutely insane track.
The topic of shootings in America gets the spotlight on "Anywhere", where Raygun puts you in the perspective of someone victim of it for the split second a loved one dies right next to you. The droning guitars only add to this horrifying perspective. The lyrics almost display it as some type of inescapable horror than can happen anywhere and split your world right open at a fraction of a second. The third fraction of the song instrumentally sounds very similar to something the Cure would've made in the 17 seconds or faith era, which is a nice touch.
"Tropical Beaches, Inc." is pretty much a typical track not so different from the ones past it but it doesn't make it less explosive as it opens with screams and a smothering bassline. A bit more cryptic, this song seems to be about greed with its "making money" chorus, I like to imagine this track has how money can mentally radicalize CEOs. The second verse is also one of my favorite moments on this album, it's really where the band wears their noise rock influences on their sleeves.
I don't have a whole lot to say about "The Mask" apart from the fact the band has a weird fixation with naming their songs "Masc", "Mask" and "Masks", which yes are all completely different tracks. Lyrically I'd say is one of the more disturbing tracks on the album (second to the closer which you'll see), where Raygun screams in the perspective of a serial killer. The way this serial killer dehumanizes his victims by calling them "animals" in his blood thirsty mania is edgy, I'll give it that, but nonetheless it's not cheap thrills. There's quite some nuance in the lyrics to be fascinated at the killer's psychology. And it goes incredibly hard too.
After that another breather but is more of an interlude "I don't care if I burn" follows pretty smoothly. The band gives up briefly on sludge metal to play more with sound effects of tribal drums and things cracking and popping. Reminds me a lot of something Daveed Diggs would rap on on "Visions of Bodies Being Burned" by clipping. or something out of "Girl with Basket of Fruit" by Xiu Xiu. Raygun on this track seems to stalk someone who has done him in the absolute worst way possible, absolutely consumed by vengeance. I think it's a necessary interlude before the closing track. Look out for the blood chilling screams at the end.
Oh boy, "grimace_smoking_weed.jpg". I don't think could've ended this album with a more nightmarish and monstrous as this one. At 9 minutes, they use every single second of it building this story of this toxicomaniac. Despite the humorous title, I genuinely think it's one of the most disturbing tracks I've ever heard, a real modern "Frankie's teardrop" :
If I could basically resume the story of this song, it's about a guy coming home to smoke some weed to chill until he sees Grimace (yes the mascot from McDonald's) in his room which awakes some inner traumas and his schizophrenia. The way the band takes this simple premise and turns into something that is so depressing, deranged and disturbing (again for a lack of a better word, just wait until you listen to it) is fascinating. I won't spoil the twist of the song, but it really just keeps building up and up in psychological horrors as the song goes on. Also love how the track fizzles out at the second end into drone metal, like the narrator's state of mind dictates the instrumentals. But of course this unsettling song wouldn't have been taken seriously if it wasn't for Raygun's vocals, which for me are the highlight of this whole album. A song you should listen to once in your life in my humble opinion.
With "God's Country", Chat Pile really reflects on the modern horrors of our late stage capitalistic world, horrors we ignore everyday as they happen next to us. It may come off as just an edgy metal album to some, but if you really take the time to reflect on the lyrics there's a lot of food for thought. Not for the light-hearted but for the rest, they'll probably found as much to love about this album as I did.
Overall I'm feeling a 9.6/10 on this album, it's really fucking amazing and I think it's one of the best examples of horror in music form.
Fav tracks : Slaughterhouse, Why, Wicked Puppet Dance, Anywhere, Tropical Beaches, inc., The Mask, grimace_smoking_weed.jpg
Least fav track : Pamela
Genres : Sludge metal, industrial metal, noise rock, pigfuck (yes it's a real genre name), post-punk
Last edited by a moderator:
, but yes it's an absolute insane track which from what I know was actually inspired by a real life event. But really the crown jewel of this album is the closing track, listen to it with no distractions, just you and the music.
