God‘s chosen country. The first modern democracy. The pursuit of happiness. Bring me your huddled masses yearning to be free. A manifest Destiny. With Liberty and Justice for all. Or maybe …
… a country to rule them all, one country to find them … and in the darkness bind them?
We all know that there is an abyssal void in the noise-rock world caused by the demise of a certain band of a certain rapist and many people have been waiting for a new band to emerge and take that throne. Chat Pile from Oklahoma City might be just that band – there has been a lot of talk about the band stirred by their two singles This Dungeon Earth and Remove Your Skin Please and last year’s split with Portrayal of Guilt, so basically all the rumors are based on ten tracks all in all. Now they released their debut full-length God’s Country on The Flenser and this might be the last necessary proof for all those unbelievers out there that The Flenser is a top10 record label world wide and that this band is gonna go far.
It shows the connections of post-punk with noise-rock and noise-rock with Nu-Metal in a way no one has ever thought about it. The guitars can be both harsh like nothing else under this black sun, sometimes swirling around your head, as in “Pamela” or abrasive and trying to kill you around each bend, as in the last track “grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg”. But even more important for God’s Country is the rhythm section which can churn out hard-pushing pump-ups like “Wicked Puppet Dance” or funky and low-tuned basslines as in “Anywhere”. The rhythm is like dancing on the corpses’ ashes.
Thematically, the record speaks about very personal topics but also topics that concern everyone – as the title implies – God’s Country, an idea of the USA that many people would have regarded as true some decades ago when for a moment the country really seemed on a way towards a brighter future. But nowadays? Don’t get me started … ”All of which are American Dreams” is no longer implying a possibility of achieving these dreams but more of an idea ancient and past. There is one line in ”Why”, the second song, which is screamed by Raygun Bosch at the top of his lungs and which already says a lot about the whole record: ”Why do people have to live outside / In the brutal heat or when it’s below freezing … We have the resources / We have the means” - yeah, why Mr President? Mr Speaker? Supreme Judge? Oh yeah, because all three of you do not give a shit! Chat Pile has seen that and are despairingly screaming against it! This might not be a shotgun serenade for the democracy but surely for those in power. This is more than RATM have given us in the last two decades apart from overpriced tours that lack any kind of credibility.
Of course, many people would agree that it is easier to be credible when you are a smaller band but nevertheless, there are also other bands who give back to their community for the support that they are being shown. It is not about flush it all away, it is about clarifying some of the problems connected to the murderous process we call global capitalism. But in the end, we are all ”Just lookin’ for some peace”, as in ”I don’ t care if I burn!”. This band is much more than a bunch of slogans, they are pissed off – and that shows clearly in the vein-throbbing way of “singing” that Raygun delivers on these nine tracks. At the moment he sees the USA as a symbol for Sauron, but maybe at some point later he might see God’s Country as a new testament for the thinkers among us. This record is as much Rage Against the Machine as it is A Patient Man - in other words:
I am not afraid of the world as long as there are bands that can put the finger into the wound and that can also be silent for a moment when necessary. Maybe one day, the USA will again be God’s Chosen Country and until then these nine tracks are our soundtrack! Situational analysis can be very useful when shouted without accusations or discrimination because you gotta know your enemy.
