Oklahoma City noise rock quartet Chat Pile have returned with their follow up to 2022’s breakout album God’s Country: Cool World, the new 10-song LP out today on The Flenser. Besides being the name of a largely forgotten (and panned) 90s film, Cool World makes for an apt title of Chat Pile’s sophomore full-length record. In the context of a Chat Pile record, the words are steeped in a grim double entendre that not only evokes imagery of a dying planet but a progression from the band’s previous work, moving the scope of its depiction of modern malaise from just “God’s Country” to the entirety of humankind. “My dream is that this album accurately reflects the anxiety and agony of living in 2024 in a way that could be useful to our broken planet. My hope is that we made a fun album to rock out to,” comments Raygun Busch.
Though very much on-brand with Chat Pile’s signature flavor of cacophonous, sludgy noise rock, the band’s shift to a global thematic focus on Cool World not only compliments the broader experimentations it employs with their songwriting but also how they dissect the album’s core theme of violence. Luther Manhole shares, “With writing these songs I just wanted to take what I love about extreme music and find ways to make it memorable and catchy. I wanted it to sound like you’re at a party during the apocalypse.”
Besides stylistically stretching the boundaries of the Chat Pile sound, Cool World is also the band’s first record to have someone else handle mixing duties, with Ben Greenberg of Uniform (Algiers, Drab Majesty, Metz) capturing and further amplifying the quartet’s unmistakably outsider and folk-art edge. “Working with Ben on the mix was a nice change of pace for us artistically, and thankfully, from a labor perspective as well. He really understood what we were trying to achieve with very little direction and it created a subtle, but crucial milestone within the band where we’ve learned the value of working with outside forces,” comments Stin.
The proverbial thread tying all of the experimentation on Cool World together is the depth to which Chat Pile dissects the album’s theme of violence, and the record itself is apocalyptically bleak. Sure, Chat Pile’s debut album was plenty disturbing with its B-movie-inspired interpretation of a “real American horror story”; what Chat Pile depicts on Cool World is unsettling not just from its visceral noise rock onslaught, but from depicting how all sorts of atrocities are pretty much standard parts of modern existence.
Cool World is out today on The Flenser. See the band on the road this fall with Agriculture and Mamaleek, and get ready for late winter tour dates with Gouge Away and Nightosphere on select shows.
Chat Pile on tour:
October 31 – Oklahoma City, OK – 89th Street $ [sold out]
November 1 – Oklahoma City, OK – 89th Street % [sold out]
November 2 – Columbia, MO – The Blue Note %
November 3 – Omaha, NE – The Waiting Room %
November 5 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall %
November 6 – Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line %
November 8 – Lakewood, OH – Mahall’s # [sold out]
November 9 – Detroit, MI – The Majestic Theatre #
November 11 – Toronto, ON – The Concert Hall #
November 12 – Montreal, QC – Théâtre Fairmount #
November 14 – Burlington, VT – Showcase Lounge @ Higher Ground ^
November 15 – Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church ^
November 16 – New York, NY – (Le) Poisson Rouge ^ [sold out]
November 17 – Boston, MA – The Sinclair ^
November 19 – Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery * [sold out]
November 20 – Richmond, VA – The Broadberry *
November 21 – Greensboro, NC – Hangar 1819 *
November 22 – Nashville, TN – The End * [sold out]
February 14 – Dallas, TX – Trees +
February 15 – Houston, TX – Secret Group +
February 16 – Austin, TX – Mohawk ~
February 18 – Albuquerque, NM – Sister Bar +
February 20 – Phoenix, AZ – The Nile Theater ~
February 21 – San Diego, CA – Soda Bar +
February 22 – Pomona, CA – The Glasshouse +
February 23 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall ~
February 25 – Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theater ~
February 26 – Seattle, WA – Neumos ~
February 27 – Vancouver, BC – The Pearl +
March 1 – Calgary, AB – Commonwealth Bar +
March 2 – Edmonton, AB – Starlite Room +
March 4 – Boise, ID – Knitting Factory +
March 5 – Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge +
March 6 – Denver, CO – Gothic Theater +
April 17-20 Tilburg, NL @ Roadburn Festival
$ with Nightosphere, Nerver
% with Agriculture, Porcelain
# with Agriculture, Traindodge
^ with Mamaleek, Traindodge
* with Mamaleek, thirdface
+ with Gouge Away, Nightosphere
~ with Nightosphere
