Tuesday 22 October 2024

Review of ‘Cool World’ by Chat Pile

The sludge metal band’s second album sees them trading pure horror for pure anger.  

Chat Pile’s 2022 debut album God’s Country was nine tracks of noisy nightmare fuel. It featured songs from the perspective of serial killers, jump scare screams and a disturbing acid trip encounter with McDonalds mascot Grimace. The band would score a horror movie titled Tenkiller the very same year. I assumed whatever they released next would be equally harrowing. But that doesn’t seem to be the main objective with their new album Cool World.

Yes, there are still heavy riff and blood-curdling screams on this album that are likely to have your average Ed Sheeran fan recoiling in sheer terror. However, Cool World seems to be more concerned with expressing anger. Similar in vein to the band’s previous anti-homeless protest song ‘Why’, this album sees vocalist Raygun Busch confronting real world horrors happening on a global scale. The band have described the record as an ‘anti-war statement’, however songs like ‘No Way Out’ could clearly be applied to climate change too. It’s an album confronting humanity’s failings that’s lyrically bleaker and more violent than its predecessor. I almost get a sense that Chat Pile don’t think it’s a very cool world at all.

Musically, the songs are more consistently heavy this time around. Whereas God’s Country had a few creepy but more subdued breathers, almost every song on Cool World is an intense rager made up of disgustingly distorted guitars and harsh vocals that regularly slip into death growls. At the same time, there are clean chorus-effect-soaked guitars and spoken word sprinkled into the mix to provide some dynamics. And there are still standout moments like the barked vocals of 'I Am Dog Now', the doomy riffs of ‘Camcorder’, the blast beat section of ‘The New World’ and the unsettling ‘it was the worst I ever saw’ refrain on ‘Tape’ (which I assume is about seeing war footage. Either that or they’ve just watched the new Joker movie).

Even though Cool World has its standout moments, I don’t they’re quite as dramatic as the standout moments there were on God’s Country. The band have instead gone for a more straightforward heavy sound, embracing songs that are easier to play live and casually listen to (relatively speaking – I still wouldn’t put this on at a house party). The riffs are enjoyably nasty, the vocals are creatively chilling and the lyrics continue to be inventively brutal. Nothing pushes the boundaries like ‘grimace-smoking-weed.jpeg’, but it’s still one of the most electrifying metal albums you’ll hear this year.

TRACK TASTING: