NEON MEGACHURCH DISSOCIATION
Chat Pile’s bright future before the event horizon.
The four members of Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile truly love movies. They’re encyclopedic when it comes to silver-screen fandom, and mentioned no fewer than a dozen films during the sweltering ly hot Saturday in June we spent together in Brooklyn. They had already visited two separate art-house theaters during their brief tour stop in New York. But the group—composed of singer Raygun Busch, guitarist Luther Manhole, bassist Stin, and drummer Captain Ron—decidedly does not like Ralph Bakshi’s infamous 1992 flop Cool World.
The quartet’s second full-length shares a title with the horned-up, hybrid animated/live-action feature, but it’s less homage and more red herring. The band, known for its sludgy dirges, hypnotic noise-rock anthems, and elegiac lyrics that one critic aptly described as “dystopian impressionism,” has expanded its artistic aperture in the two years since releasing their immediate cult-classic debut, God’s Country.
