{"id":1300,"date":"2024-11-12T13:06:27","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T18:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/?p=1300"},"modified":"2024-11-12T13:07:33","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T18:07:33","slug":"biting-the-hand-that-fails-to-feed-you-chat-piles-cool-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/2024\/11\/12\/biting-the-hand-that-fails-to-feed-you-chat-piles-cool-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Biting The Hand That Fails To Feed You: Chat Pile’s Cool World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Genre: <\/strong>Sludge Metal \/\/ Rage Therapy Rock \/\/ <\/em>Doomer Metal<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rating: <\/strong>8\/10<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to what you might assume from the title, Chat Pile\u2019s fresh album Cool World <\/em>crash lands as a response to a very torrid and \u2018uncool\u2019 world. A world where our lesser evils ridicule protesters of the current genocide while apologizing for those from their past. A world I\u2019m not sure I could adequately defend to an inquisitive visiting extraterrestrial\u2026 at least not pleasantly. This album rings like the thinkers of Chat Pile trying to rationalize and explain why the human experiment should be allowed to continue to a future all-exterminating ChatGPT-esque AI and only digging themselves deeper and deeper into a hole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the borderline-spoken word post-Brexit punk revival scene with Black Midi and Fontaines D.C. to the prestigious American rock scene with Vampire Weekend and St. Vincent, global rock scenes sound as colorful as ever. However, when you tiptoe past the curtain and into the more hardcore sediments of guitar music, before you nosedive into the circuitous caverns of metal music, you find the bleak Chat Pile in the gray area — a band most known for their critically acclaimed interrogative single \u201cWhy\u201d and its pressing questions over the seemingly preventable homelessness crisis\u2019 prevalence in the richest regime in history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chat Pile\u2019s sound presents a different kind of rock — a metamorphic one formed by societal pressure and the same insidious heat microwaving the environment and cooking people\u2019s brains. Grown out of Oklahoma, critics laud Chat Pile for encapsulating the unique looming dread that dominates the neglected American south and large swathes of the dilapidated midwest. The project evinces a hanging sparkly chandelier that demands your gaze; you may be tempted to swing, but it\u2019s evident it could shatter or macerate you at any moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hearing the overstrung single \u201cMasc\u201d convinced me to listen to the album and remains the peak of the project for me. This single sees a relationship\u2019s spark mutate into a punitive thunderbolt that prickles through you like the spines of an embracive cactus. Most of the album\u2019s American portrait consists of muted, low contrast greens and blacks with flashes of claret red, but \u201cMasc\u201d sees some white rays of lightning stab through the overcast as the track explores the pain of love. The title cites how masculinity can be a mask that silences men, bolting their words and emotions inside until they ferment into a poison, leaving them barking at the most inopportune times. \u201dMasc\u201d illustrates the bloodletting that can come with compromised trust and forgiving out of fear of starting over. Its abject hopelessness is painfully human. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their full October release Cool World <\/em>feels like the soundtrack to the vitriolic slasher of our world\u2019s present moment, who\u2019s horror we seem to only fully acknowledge during these surreal election years. Opener \u201cI Am Dog Now\u201d chucks you in the horror flick en media res, where you thud against the gritty soot after tripping on the restrictive barbed wire. The echoing drum feels like a skittering heartbeat under the gothic distress from the demoralizing situation of trying to run from authority despite there being nowhere to hide in the vacuous Great Plains. The unevenness of the track\u2019s rhythm mirrors your limp from your fresh injuries. The album\u2019s intentions are immediately clear as they reference Rousseau’s Social Contract, planting that question of \u201chow free are you really?\u201d in your mind for the album\u2019s runtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After \u201cI Am Dog Now\u201d implicates us all as animals born free but raving in a manmade cage, \u201cShame\u201d grabs us by the hair and forces us to see the waterfalls of blood at the foundation of our lives. It is impossible to experience the visceral sounds and pleading lyrics penned across this album and not feel the children of Gaza. The song questions whether our world has any shame left as we see the hand of man burn up the naturally cool earth to the detriment of our brethren. Upon hearing lines like \u201cIn their parents arms, the kids were falling apart\u201d, it\u2019s impossible to look away and ignore how our comfort — our education, our hospitals, our luxury — lean on the murder machine to exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every two songs on this album feel like sibling pieces in this larger portrayal of our world. Where the first two tracks color humanity\u2019s feral tendencies, the next two tracks \u201cFrownland\u201d and \u201cFunny Man\u201d depict life online vs. outside. (You can probably guess Frownland refers to the internet and its many anonymous creatures and time-devouring fruitless discourse, its title invoking the site formerly known as Twitter.) \u201cCamcorder\u201d and \u201cTape\u201d recall the power of video, especially in the context of war — from the television changing the course of the Vietnam War to Instagram and TikTok radicalizing a current of teens for Palestine. \u201cThe New World\u201d and \u201cMasc\u201d recount lost potential and mistreatment. \u201cMilk of Human Kindness\u201d and \u201cNo Way Out\u201d bookend the album with its arguably most colorful offerings as the bass grooves creep toward \u2018funky\u2019 at times, but they still maintain the hauntingly bleak beauty Chat Pile is known for. The closer lacks a climactic, barrier-breaking ending, though as a means to an end; Cool World <\/em>is more a portrait of the world\u2019s current state rather than a cohesive linear narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album offers nothing to joke about, but at moments it feels like you can do nothing else but laugh. Other aural portraits of the world\u2019s state like Gorillaz\u2019 Demon Days <\/em>often end on a hopeful note, but \u201cNo Way Out\u201d is the best Chat Pile can offer at the moment, for it may be all we deserve for now as a price for our apathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pessimism aside, I doubt they are just trying to be written off as preachy Negative Nancies or \u201cthat one friend who\u2019s too woke.\u201d Chat Pile\u2019s singer Raygun Busch\u2019s desperation allows the simple yet incisive lyrics to be uttered gutturally yet intelligibly for a reason. Based on \u201cShame\u201d\u2019s powerful stanza \u201cAnd the world was quaking open with all our fathers smiling \/\/ And the statues rose high above us and God remained silent,\u201d I think Busch is praying for us to examine the legacies and ghosts we\u2019ll leave behind. \u201cFunny Man\u201ds lines \u201cI gave them my flesh to write the final chapter \/\/ But the blood of my sons is just a new beginning\u201d and \u201cI broke my knees upon the pearl and onyx \/\/ In the hall of trophies built to honor my father\u201d implore: how will our actions haunt those after us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The band\u2019s fevered anger comes from a justified place and stands out as a reminder not to forget how to cry. The last thing we should do is stay desensitized and move on from \u2018trends\u2019 that cast the spotlight on enduring issues like police brutality, gun violence, and colonialism. In the words of punk ideologue Zack de la Rocha: \u201cAnger is a gift.\u201d Cool World <\/em>provides a chilling reality check, but cautions against sliding into the total anomie of capitalist realism. Don\u2019t let it all burn you out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Favorite Tracks:<\/strong> Masc, Shame, Funny Man, Frownland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Genre: Sludge Metal \/\/ Rage Therapy Rock \/\/ Doomer Metal Rating: 8\/10 Contrary to what you might assume from the title, Chat Pile\u2019s fresh album Cool World crash lands as a response to a very torrid and \u2018uncool\u2019 world. A world where our lesser evils ridicule protesters of the current genocide while apologizing for those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[27,19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1302,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions\/1302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}