REVIEW: CHAT PILE @ SINCLAIR 11/17

Photo Credit: Tia Payne

Review by Miguel Gonzales

Chat Pile this, Chat Pile that, Chat Pile could, would, and should. . . The conversation about the Oklahoma metal quartet on a Sunday night subjected you. Immediately turning the right corner to Church Street, where The Sinclair sits, four long-haired (and chronically online) guys wait in a long line, covering “Masc” in the style of a barbershop quartet, asking the real questions for everyone to hear.

“I think Chat Pile can beat a dolphin to a fight. Do you think so?” a slightly burly, curly-haired dude asks his friends. Chat Pile’s bassist, Stin, walks past me to enter the backway of the venue. “I don’t know, why don’t you ask him,” the bearded guy in front turns to me and asks quietly. We both snicker. 

However irony poisoned the crowd is, Chat Pile’s ironic attitudes unapologetically catapult into the conscious despair of the bleak modern world in their sludge-filled music. Their blunt crassness and churning gloom are wicked appealing – their critically acclaimed and cheeky-named debut album “God’s Country” reflects American culture’s harrowing, bludgeoned landscape filled with an intensely immense ugliness. Humor is medicine for a fucked up world, and the only thing you can do is laugh shit off. 

Previously releasing two buzzed-about EPs before “God’s Country” and touring in support of the band’s sophomore follow-up “Cool World,” released this year, Chat Pile has been on a steady roll, foraging their way in establishing themselves as a national tour-de-force originating from the evergrowing, heavy Midwestern scene. Having played at The Sinclair last year, the band headlines the Cambridge-based venue yet again with a sold-out show. The hype around Chat Pile is real; the band is at its greatest, pushing full throttle and no breaks.

Chat Pile’s set promptly begins around 9:45 PM, the lights coming to an immediate dim. The Cheers theme song plays for twenty seconds, almost wrapping up the first verse, when ear-piercing feedback greets us, lasting for five seconds. The feedback cuts out and returns to the chorus of the song. By that point, the lights turn bright orange, and the band walks out, welcomed by a splintering cheer. The band waves and the crowd hollers plentiful of “yeahs” and “woos” while Raygun Busch picks up an unattended microphone.

“Cheers, you remember that show? I watched the finale with my grandparents. My grandma was a diehard Ted Handson fan. She watched Becker until she died in her nineties. It’s true!” Busch sluggishly says. The entire monologues Busch has on stage when transitioning into songs are hysterical, referencing nothing but movies and television based in Harvard or the Boston area. 

The craziness heightens with their stage antics and hard-hitting performance. Beginning with the menacing “Tape” and hellish “Wicked Puppet Dance,” Busch slowly strips off most of his clothing one by one. He takes off his thrashed Adidas slippers and walks around barefoot, then his Criterion-branded hat, and then off goes his Texas Chainsaw Massacre shirt. What remains is a hairy man in long grey shorts pacing around the stage, dancing and shaking around frantically, letting out blood-curdling screams from a howling voice. You just can’t take your eyes off it – even some young moshers in the pushpit stopped just to take a glance. 

The band amplifies Busch’s startling vocals much further. Guitarist Luther Manhole’s (yes, the band goes under pseudonyms) stabbing tone, Stin’s guttural and pummelling bass playing, and Cap’n Ron’s hammering drums hold no mercy – the band carving their sludge-metal sound into a violent spectacle. Even slower tempo cuts like “Camcorder” and “Anywhere” see the band keeping this frightening edge. They are still oddly provocative, cut-throat, and mercilessly chaotic as ever.

The crowd screams for more songs, and Chat Pile gives the people what they want, coming out on stage again with an encore around 10:45 PM. Chat Pile takes a familiar return to the old after playing material from “Cool World” and “God’s Country,” playing two songs from their 2019 EP “Remove Your Skin Please.” The crowd gets ballistic once “Mask” comes on, and Chat Pile dishes it out effortlessly. There’s endless screaming, hollering, brutting instrumentation – one person even successfully stagedives during “Mask”. 

The last song, “Davis,” ends their set off on an intensely ugly note. Cap’n Ron’s blitzering blast beats, Luther Manhole’s puncturing guitar, Stin’s battering bass, meanwhile Raygun Busch goes apeshit on stage. Chat Pile is the perfect amalgamation of a band that personifies the ugly. Through their persona, music, sound, lyricism, and live performance – it should warrant you to catch them on tour. No current band is comparable to Chat Pile, and their charged ferocity is truly a one-of-a-kind you don’t want to miss. 

Before Chat Pile took the stage, Oklahoma post-hardcore veterans Traindodge started the show at 8 P.M. Their brief 27-minute set was a nice palette to begin the night, old dudes rocking out to songs leaning toward math-rock territory that are undeniably melodic. Traindodge delivers some punchy moments, such as “The Taste of Broken Glass.” They still have it, nearly thirty years as a band.

Mamaleek’s set wielded into the kookier side of things and was just fantastic live. The anonymous experimental rock collective lives up to their enigmatic anonymity, walking out around 8:45 P.M. with very eclectic looks. Cloaked in different-colored fabric masks, their fashion ranges from the guitarist’s wool-patterned vest, the bassist’s tracksuit tucked into black socks, and the vocalist’s business casual embrace. Their unusual presence caught me off guard, but the music was even better.

Their dissonant, unflinching hybrid of jazz, black metal, and experimental rock translates so well live. Songs such as the brooding “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage” and galvanizing “Boiler Room” were pulverizing. The vocalist churns out hasty grunts, jolting around the stage. Meanwhile, the band’s hauntingly dense instrumentation creates dark soundscapes that still linger with me after the show. Flute, field recordings, and synth make their way into the band’s grim and mystique arrangements, amplifying their already unnerving, gloom-filled set. Mamaleek is one of those bands that should be on your radar – a band with a ferocious grasp on their influences weaving a bleak vision of a cacophonous, fever dream set in a diner.