Chat Pile
This Dungeon Earth/Remove Your Skin Please [Reissue]
THE FLENSER
Brace yourselves for a very dangerous opinion that only a select few other rock critics—fearless of being targeted by lawless authority figures, unafraid of being blacklisted, and undeterred by cowardly masked thugs kidnapping and disappearing us off city sidewalks without due process—are willing to bravely stand up and say aloud: Chat Pile have made it to the big show. Multitudinous factors fuel the basis for this courageous, contentious, and yet cogent assertion. The Oklahoma City noidgers (that’s the new designation for bands that are equally noisy and sludgy, in case you’ve been living under a rock) have garnered immeasurable praise and accolades based off just two studio records. They’ve already headlined multiple festivals, including the most taste-making metal one of them all, Roadburn.
Chat Pile are planting yet another feather in their cap with the re-release of their first two EPs—2019’s This Dungeon Earth and Remove Your Skin Please—via a single-vinyl compendium welding together the two statements that preceded their formal introduction to the unwitting masses, 2022’s God’s Country. Perhaps the most overt indicator of all that Chat Pile have broken through lies in the fact that this reissue is dropping so early in their career. Record labels big and small generally only cobble such a project together when they’re overwhelmingly confident that they have on their hands a band that could reshape their genre’s landscape in their own image (Chat Pile would never be so hubristic to make such a claim, but hey, that’s what rock critics are for). Think DGC putting out Nirvana’s B-sides and outtakes collection Incesticide after record stores had trouble refilling their CD bins with copies of Bleach and Nevermind. Or Columbia looking to capitalize on System of a Down’s success following their self-titled and Toxicity by churning out Steal This Album!.
For all the idiotic idioms repeated ad nauseam in 21st century culture, one of the few that has some truth to it is to enjoy the sensation of being firmly planted in the moment, and not preoccupied with the past or anxious about the future. Chat Pile are almost certainly keyed into this philosophy, which is why they seem grounded in reality and stage absolutely crushing shows. Their fans will be doing themselves a big favor by experimenting with that mindful outlook on life, too—even if they’re encouraged to deviate from it when Chat Pile asks them to check out material they likely missed, but of which the band is still rightfully proud.
