ALBUM REVIEW: Cool World – Chat Pile
All that CHAT PILE vocalist Raygun Busch sings of on sophomore album Cool World is the scum that boils to the surface of the broth. The easily discarded and overlooked gore, in order for us to have the quick and easy commodities in life, what it takes to have that squeaky clean near-instant gratification at the click of a button. To have more so others can have less. Giving pedestal to the atrocities in society, so that we can throw rotten fruits and vegetables at them.
Drama aside, CHAT PILE give perspective to the rapidly declining environmental state of the world, for Cool World to release at the same time as the catastrophe that Hurricane Milton is, leaving only destruction in its wake, makes for a poignant one. It’s not hard to find something to fear during the record’s run time, in fact it’s harder to find something that feels comfortable, whether it’s their sludge coated noise rock or themes of unprecedented violence, Cool World is never pleasant.
Opener I Am Dog Now the ever present poison from their debut God’s Country, with ease they deliver a thunderous first impression, frantic and jagged. Shame creates a graphic of bodies torn apart, as a result of colonialism Busch sings “The way the bombs explode, the way it tore up their skin” that one line alone is a collage of the images that emerge from Palestine. Camcorder and Tape only add to the tragedy, consuming those images, we grow cold and placid to it all so easily.
Masc, with its swampy instrumental and harrowing vocals, zooms in on a cycle of toxic masculinity and identity, being free from that and in many ways the only way to be free from that is the final exit. Busch’s vocals for the most part are so heavily withdrawn and defeated, and slowly become more self-hating. The lack of emotion in it is the biggest reason for its sadness.
Cool World should be an eye opener, it’s your adult life’s version of the horror film that haunted you as a child, the one that you still haven’t shaken and everytime you think of it it’s under your skin living your life just as much as you are, sinking the claws so deep that it has grown with you.
Really there should only be one thing scarier to you than fiction, and that’s reality. Reality is the big bad monster, you compartmentalise each little section of it to cope with its horror, on Milk Of Human Kindness, Busch sings “I’d heard nothing about the way they burned”. CHAT PILE’s biggest strength is that they’re not a mode of escapism, they’re contrarian in that sense. Making you face up to everything that is so easy to scroll past, or see a headline and not pay it any mind. It’s a big middle finger to being comfortable, accepting everything that is horrible and living your life because you can. The truth is we can all do more to stop this slow and painful death of the world as we know it, in every aspect, CHAT PILE own that on their sophomore record.
Rating: 9/10
Cool World is out now via The Flenser.
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