There’s something innately American about Chat Pile. It helps that they’re based in Oklahoma. This is the Wild West, where the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye – Uncle Sam’s territory. But Chat Pile has seldom sought comfort in their hometown. Their debut album ‘God’s Country’ features cover artwork that displays the Oklahoma County Detention Centre; a grisly visage of the cruelty often purported as the American dream. Their second, ‘Cool World’, features artwork depicting a monolithic cross, photographed just north of Oklahoma City – a stately image of conservative fundamentalism. For their third and latest, ‘Who Loves The Sun’, the artwork depicts a stark contrast between a foreground of urban abandonment and a distantly affluent world that is at once both seductive and unobtainable. All three albums incidentally are also sludgy juggernauts of metallic rage.
Cover art of this nature doesn’t inherently mean Chat Pile dislike Oklahoma. Their home state is merely indicative of the kind of societal ills that are ubiquitous. Past songs about Oklahoman homelessness (‘Why’) or the local meat industry (‘Slaughterhouse’), may sound hyper-localised, but these problems carry a borderless universality that is part of Chat Pile’s appeal.
‘PEN I S MALL’ – one of this new album’s already-released singles – continues this trend. Yes, it is lyrically inspired by vocalist Ray B.’s time working as a local maintenance man, but themes about capitalism’s repressive nature turning life into “a series of acts of subordination,” are applicable worldwide. The song’s emotional palette is twofold; despair and rage. The former is lyrical and the latter instrumental, which largely summarises Chat Pile’s third and most brutal album to date. It’s not hard to imagine Ray B.’s fury manifesting in a vocal performance achieved only by smashing up the recording studio in the process.
Chat Pile fans will be used to this. But ‘Who Loves The Sun’ is an especially feral album. The aptly named ‘Creature’ bashes around like one, its brooding riffs a perfect accompaniment to lyrics about self-imposed extinction – “Please don’t say we couldn’t stop this,” Ray B. bemoans morbidly.
It’s all rather bleak, what with most of the album being dedicated to themes of global turpitude and suffering. It is also agreeable in its criticisms, so much so that at times it teeters on the edge of sounding glib. But Chat Pile back their stances by being no more street smart than they are book smart. Take ‘Deep Blue’, its title sharing a name with the computer that famously defeated chess world champion Garry Kasparov in the ‘90s, forming a lofty allusion that encapsulates technocratic anxiety. There’s likewise a pleasing Kafka reference, with Ray B. stating that he “might be a bug now but I still gotta get to work.” This is a band whose anger is not only sincere, it is accompanied by a reading list.
They’re also somewhat of an old-fashioned prospect when it comes to the use of the riff which, like all good descendants of Sabbath, is central to their songwriting. There are occasions when Chat Pile rely perhaps too heavily on this, with songs like ‘Christabel ‘26’ and ‘Influence’ gleaning all potential from the weight of these riffs alone, but Chat Pile are nonetheless creative songwriters, using jagged riffs to cast a spiky mysteriousness across ‘Intruder’. In one of the band’s more sinister moments of storytelling, Ray. B. talks of an imposter “dreaming about a life that’s fair and true,” who finds themselves “living under your bed now, knife inside your sleeping mouth.” It’s the stuff of nightmares, all from a band with no qualms about using the vividness of their imagery to create something evil.
It might all sound a little too gruesome for some. Fortunately though, ‘Who Loves The Sun’ does include vocals that are so overwrought, some of this macabre storytelling is rendered near inaudible as Ray B.’s vocals sear their way through the Oklahoman heat of these ten songs, his growls and roars becoming their own instrument, offering a visceral enjoyment all of its own.
So, when on ‘Family Funeral’ he reverts to a clearer, almost conversational tone, it’s arresting. “I never wanted to be in love,” Ray B. sings. “Awful thing, dreadful thing.” The unravelling and titular funeral that follows is hideous when taken at face value. When considered as a metaphor – for human suffering, the breakdown of community and the dissolving of relationships more broadly – it sees Chat Pile at their most disconsolate.
Let that be a reminder then that, while Chat Pile deserve praise for the knockabout brashness of their chunky riffs and Ray B.’s savage vocals, ‘Who Loves The Sun’ should be approached with caution. It is an album that faces difficult subjects with striking earnestness, however painful that may be.
BEN WILLIAMS