Written by Barlovv
> Chat Pile – God’s Country
> Sludge Noise
> Released July 29th, 2022
> Bandcamp Link
“Tried to fuck me, called me a liar
So I shot him in the head, set the house on fire“
2022 has been a year of absolutely genre-defining and crushing music. From Knoll to Ashenspire to Tristys there is so much interesting shit happening in metal and it feels like a privilege to be here for it. Along comes Chat Pile‘s latest record, God’s Country which has made me feel in a way that I can’t remember feeling in recent memory about a piece of music.
40 minutes of absolutely relentless suffering plays out over the course of this album, ending with absolute despairing cries of “I don’t want to live anymore” and you are front and center for every second of this, unflinching and brutal. There is a part of me that wanted to get this review done as quickly as possible so that I could take a bit of a breather from the album, and another part that doesn’t want to ever stop listening to it.
Aside from being very difficult to explain how God’s Country made me feel, it’s also an album that is really challenging to classify in terms of genre. The cover might make you think you’re in for some straight up black metal, with that classic font, but throughout the album there are so many pieces from other genres and artists that it becomes a disorienting experience, to say the least. I felt like I even picked up traces of The Violent Femmes in the lyrical performances. I’ve seen a tremendous number of other folks on the ol’ blue bird website with very different pulls so it may just depend on what’s in your brain, it’s hard to say.
What’s not hard to say is that God’s Country is an absolutely incredible piece of work that has echoes of a psychotic break and righteous fury at the world around you. In “Why” asking, all to rightly, why people have to live outside and calling out the absolute fucking bullshit that a country like the United States (or Canada for that matter) can claim to be “developed” nation, and yet so many of its citizens live discarded and ignored by the very country that is supposed to value them so much.
The Bottom Line
The fact of the matter is, based on Metal Twitter’s recent discourse, God’s Country hardly needs any help in getting hyped. The thing is everywhere, and it absolutely fucking deserves it. I won’t be surprised if it turns up on most album of the year list, once we’ve all recovered from the experience of course.