top of page
Oliver Corrigan

Chat Pile Review: A Murderous Set of the Highest Degree

The Dome, Tufnell Park

"You asked for it, you got it."

For the first first time in their tenure, the latest gun-slingers in noise-rock beseeched North London in a flurry of back-to-back nights. Reciting a litany of gruesome tales drenched in niche film references, Chat Pile's unorthodox offerings produced one of the most indelible this year.

Midway through their vociferous set, the sweat-drenched, beer-bellied, shirtless man on stage acquiesces against the insistent cries from the crowd. For scarcely a setlist is to be seen as the Oklahoma City noise-rock outfit, surge through their second night at the nation’s capital insistent on performing differing tracks (plucked in the moment) to the night prior.


Raygun Busch defiantly fronts his brethren on stage, otherwise known as Chat Pile, as the crowd-favourite ‘Why’, taken from their storming debut LP of last year, God’s Country, is eventually excavated to the crowd’s delight. Seething with reprehensible volition, societally-charged questioning and gruesome detailings, the band’s unpredictable setlist bleeds resoundingly into their no-prisoner-taking brand of noise-rock-come-sludge metal to monolithic magnitude.


Where most acts in this lane may engage with the crowd, clambering into the masses and becoming one with their audience, Busch remains restrained on-stage: caught in an internal whirlwind of thoughts and anxieties paralysing him within the stage’s crucible. As Busch strides back and forth across either side, Chat Pile recite their leaner sludge metal beginnings of their 2019 EPs, endlessly enlisting such gruesome, sadistic scenes undercut with dark humour of the highest order (“Cut me into thin microscopically thin slices and send me to Arby’s”).

Illustrated by the fuzzied, thicker-than-mud distortions consuming their backdrop, ‘Rat Boy’ gurgles with hints of Imperial Triumphant whilst ‘Dallas Beltway’ plays out a murderous tale held by a never-ending crescendo, destined to break yet never quite willing - forever leaving us suspended in its firm, unrelenting grip.

Yet many here tonight remained familiar with their name-making, crucifying and expertly-produced debut LP of last year, God’s Country. ‘Slaughterhouse’ announces their presence with sludge-trodden basslines and yelpings of “hammers and grease!”, transcending into the evening’s pinnacle: the dissonant apocalypse incited in ‘Anywhere’. Busch perfectly balances a tightrope act between gasping screams and brooding spoken word as the track evolves: hazy pre-choruses a-la Pixies; grungy yet cataclysmic choruses reminiscent of Nirvana (“It’s the sound of a fucking gun / It’s the sound of the world collapsing”); set within a distorted backdrop extrapolated by the industrial likes of Korn or Nine Inch Nails.


In a similar effect to one’s first listen of their debut, Chat Pile produced a dizzying hour-long set packed tightly into Tufnell Park’s The Dome. Their prowess overpowered the venue’s historically-questionable sound system (aside from some vocal suffocations), unorthodoxly surging through each track to catastrophic effect - particularly for those ear plug-free or consumed by the mosh pits. For tonight remained one of the most indelible this year, bettering a myriad of current noise rock affiliates (Daughters, Lightning Bolt) whilst exuding Busch’s niche film references caked into the metal-scraping, mud-bathing afflictions of such an act. If their latest material is anything to go by, including an unheard-before track, this act’s simmering splash will evolve into a bloodied tidal wave in the coming years.


8.5/10


Chat Pile's debut LP, God's Country, is out now via The Flenser and can be found below.

Photos are courtesy of Lor Nov whose work can be found here.


Comments


bottom of page