CHAT PILE

Since the release of their debut album, 2022's "God's Country", CHAT PILE have become unofficial standard bearers for the noise rock scene. Admittedly, as a genre, noise rock is never less than nebulous and ill-defined, with bands like WRONG and EYE FLYS at one end of the spectrum, and experimental extremists like MELT-BANANA and OXBOW at the other. But CHAT PILE have already outgrown those obvious affiliations. Purveyors of a sound that takes the primitive, riff-driven savagery of early HELMET and UNSANE, and feeds it through 30 years of untamable, freeform guitar abuse, the Oklahoma City quartet make noise rock that bristles with dark emotion and delivers heaviness on both musical and spiritual levels. Nobody leaves a CHAT PILE album feeling better about the state of humanity, but when it comes to visceral thrills, few bands can match them. Much anticipated, "Cool World" is the confirmatory follow-up to that extraordinary debut: this time around, this band's status as inspirational figureheads is simply beyond dispute. This album will reduce people to squirming pulp.

It starts with a riff that will have devotees head-nodding themselves into a stupor. In some ways the epitome of contemporary noise rock, "I Am Dog Now" is a hostile, lurching tirade, assailed by feedback and distortion, but slickly mechanistic and utterly pummeling. "Everyone bleeds!" roars frontman Randy "Raygun Busch" Heyer, as another twisted riff takes over. The tone has been set, and "Shame" pushes it further. Aching with regret and defeat, it's a surprisingly melodic entry in the CHAT PILE diary, but its underlying nastiness is only thinly concealed beneath Heyer's bone-dry melodies and the SONIC YOUTH-like churn of the guitars. As it sluggishly stomps towards a bitter end, ugly death grunts and rasping screams bubble up from rumbling bottom end, gruffly extinguishing all hope.

That mood of unbearable tension continues into "Frownland": an almost GODFLESH-esque barrage of grinding, no-wave riffs and harrowing chord clashes, it somehow manages to sound ferociously disciplined and completely out of control. As with every one of these songs, it is stupidly exciting and akin to a slow motion, white-knuckle motorcycle ride, without a helmet. Or brakes.

Next, "Funny Man" could be mistaken for a rare moment of levity, but in reality CHAT PILE's gleeful meddling with their own sound is entirely devoted to bad vibes. Despite a slight air of coked-out funkiness, it still sounds like a brawl in an underground carpark. Similarly, "Camcorder" is steeped in the same concrete 'n' corruption aesthetic as UNSANE's greatest moments, but Heyer's blank-eyed vocal adds a fresh perspective and even the thin outline of a melodic hook. Underneath, the riffs clatter and clump like bog-trolls marching through sewage. In contrast, both "Tape" and "The New World" pick up the pace to deliver more telling blows, and "Masc" is an instant gem, with audible glimmers of both "Solid Gold"-era GANG OF FOUR and the most cerebral, early '90s shoegaze adding to an overwhelming blizzard of belligerence.

Despite many moments that sound like the sky falling in, "Cool World" is a much more dynamic and nuanced record than its predecessor. Variously summed up in the minimalist menace of "Milk of Human Kindness", which sounds like SHELLAC covering THE CURE in abattoir, and the jaw-jarring pugilism of the closing "No Way Out", what CHAT PILE are doing is neither particularly radical nor unusually extreme. But this band has a virulent and forceful vibe that is theirs alone, and "Cool World" is the pinnacle of its expression to date. Weird, noisy, emotionally grueling and bloated with killer riffs, it's even cooler than its title suggests.