“God's Country” (The Flenser, 2022), the album that introduced Chat Pile (formed near Oklahoma City only three years earlier), presented itself as the psychotic moan of a band that observed the surrounding world deteriorating, well sheltered and however isolated in a narrow cave. An overwhelming, sick feeling that resulted in a sound halfway between sludge metal and claustrophobic and implosive noise-rock.
This new “Cool World” however, sound aside, is a very different album. It seems that the band has emerged from that cave and has begun to wander around this world reduced to piles of toxic waste and old symbols of a society on the verge of collapse. Obviously, the attitude of the creature that left the cave is not the most friendly and conciliatory.
It is no coincidence that before being crushed by the riff of the opening track “I Am A Dog Now”, the doom ride is opened by dazzling synth flourishes. Just as if something was slipping out of the mouth of a cave to meet the light after a long time.
The sound mass forged by Chat Pile in “Cool World” appears more accessible than in “God's Country”, organized as it is in the direction of the song form, in a certain way even more catchy, but therefore also more direct and incisive. After the sonic assault of the aforementioned “I Am A Dog Now” it is in fact the turn of “Shame”, a song that highlights standby growl And scream and features Raygun Busch barking out a plaintive but engaging refrain.
The martial pace of the guitar and the ferrous and snapping rhythm of “Frowland” mechanically mimic the groove metal by Sepultura, just like “Funny Man” could belong to Korn's repertoire, if poisoned by nuclear waste. “Tape” adds to the band's new (or at least on this occasion more marked) influences the heavy grunge of Soundgarden and the strident noise of the inevitable Jesus Lizard.
In its second part the album continues, ruthlessly, to grant no respite: the riff bombardier at the end of “The New World”, the digs on the bass strings of “Masc” and so on. Only “Milk Of Human Kindness”, with its more typically sludge pace, sees the pace decelerate and the firepower decrease – in terms of impetuosity, certainly not in terms of venom.
Interspersed with the “Tenkiller” soundtrack and one split-album with Nerver, the first two Chat Pile LPs are two mirror-image but complementary albums. Two sides of the same, ferocious and revolting coin. Which makes the formation the leading name (now that the patrons Have A Nice Life are on hiatus again) of The Flenser and, it goes without saying, of the most extreme noise and metal scenes. Also given that this “Cool World” seems to have the right attitude to make the band gain numerous new converts and the presence on numerous trendy billboards in the next festival season.
22/10/2024
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM