For decades, the outskirts of Oklahoma City served as a dumping ground for “chat”, toxic residue left over from long forgotten limestone and dolomite mining expeditions. Today, those very “chat piles” gradually damage the buildings and air, creating a slow moving ecological disaster. In the past couple years, the dirty, damaged, and warehouse infested slums of Oklahoma City has birthed a growing experimental music scene, with a storm of political activism to follow. 

Made up entirely of Oklahoma residents, the sludge metal and alternative grunge outfit Chat Pile perfectly combines the elements of radical political activism and heavy, distorted, nihilistic music. 

Beginning as a small garage passion project of vocalist Raygun Busch and guitarist Luther Manhole, the early years of Chat Pile were something of an ever-evolving rock band, using the influences of early noise rock and grunge through groups like Slint, The Jesus Lizard, and Acid Bath. The groups first two EP’s This Dungeon Earth and Remove Your Skin Please were both filled with quality tracks and ideas, but lacked the visceral song writing and heavy political messaging that their 2022 release God’s Country offered. 

Chat Pile’s debut album God’s Country is the final evolution of the band. No punches were pulled, in a throttling, 40 minute plea for the lives of many a worker doomed to die in an over-urbanized hell. 

The opener of the album, Slaughterhouse, offers heavy, sludge metal guitar riffs and drum patterns, with little polish or sheen on the production or mixes. This instrumental palate stays consistent throughout the whole album, but doesn’t bore or wane in intensity. But the instrumentals are really just a chaotic backdrop. As unpredictable as they are, they pale in comparison to the freakish and unhinged vocals. 

Lead singer and songwriter Raygun Busch approaches every song with a feral, manic, and yelp-toned delivery. Most lyrics are dark in content, but sound purely hopeless when screamed with immense fear and skin-tearing anxiety. The refrain and cries of “Hammers and Grease” throughout the length of the song Slaughterhouse come to mind. 

The song Why is a blunt, weighty, and fast paced outburst, but also approaches urban homelessness with a unique perspective. Rather than muse about metaphorical connections to the natural world or the plight of humanity, the question is simply asked. “Why? Why do people have to live outside? There are buildings with heating and plumbing that no one lives in.” The obvious simplicity of the song is an eye roll at first, but an appreciation of the frankness of the lyrics immediately follows. 

The song Tropical Beaches, INC is a hardcore punk song with very strong environmental themes. Busch screams about the commodification of even the oceans and rivers, speaking of using elliptical machines on a boardwalk.The messaging doesn’t hit quite as hard as the storm of questions on Why, but has an irresistible dark groove.

Pamela distances itself from the political themes of the album, and is a harrowing tribute to a former lover who drowned themself. The primal screaming and shouting is substituted for a somber spoken word delivery, and the guitars and drums are much quieter. The lyrics of this song are poetic but also direct, with a chorus that gives the most emotionally vulnerable moment on the album. “I can’t remember if I told you I loved you, that morning on the lake, you called for your mother. My heart broke into a million pieces, the kind of sadness you just never get used to”.

The 9 minute closer on the album, grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg, is an intense and sludgy narration through a nervous breakdown, transforming into a substance-assisted panic attack. The shrieking reaches a boiling point, as the lyrics threaten to jump out the window and end it all.

The beauty of Chat Pile comes in their ugliness, and their refusal to be tamed. The band crafted a horrifying listen, something that you can’t deafen or block out. You’re forced to watch the world go up in flames, with the band as your narrators of the documentary. Combining personal tales and environmental issues, God’s Country is the filthy masterpiece that was needed to put the OKC sludge scene on the map.