A Cool Album About an Uncool World

Reflections and Review: Cool World by Chat Pile (2024)

I regularly follow the top RateYourMusic charts as my main method of keeping track of new releases that are regarded well by the general public in my favorite genres. I don’t tend to trust any one reviewer, nor do I trust other people’s ratings, because I am so picky when it comes to listening to music and trying to form my own opinions without bias, even if it’s impossible to completely be free of any influence as a flawed human being. However, I do find these trends interesting. The most interesting update to their top 2024 metal chart so far this year to me has been Cool World by Chat Pile shortly after its release suddenly being ranked higher than the critically acclaimed and absolutely magnificent technical death metal album Absolute Elsewhere by Blood Incantation. By all musical standards, Blood Incantation makes sense as a top release due to the musicians’ vast skill and technique, and their thoughtful composition in creating a space-themed, progressive metal album that tells a story. I decided to jump into Cool World without reading any reviews, though I did take note of the tags, including noise rock, sludge metal, and the ever-so-interesting nu metal. I rarely ever see anything tagged with nu metal make it that high on the charts on this site, unless the band happens to be the beloved Deftones.

Basically, I find that this album is the creative intersection between two of my favorite bands: Korn and IDLES, and “Funny Man” is a great example of this sound. You have a fairly typical 1990s nu metal instrumentation coupled with spoken vocals that sound like Joe Talbot’s spoken style that is prominent throughout Joy as an Act of Resistance (2018). Musically, the album isn’t very punk-oriented at all; I think that the nu metal influence is extremely strong. Honestly, I feel that it is stronger than many would care to admit, due to some embarrassing affiliations with the genre. Chat Pile consistently features throughout this album the groovy, downtuned guitar riffs that define the genre, especially prominent in “Frownland,” which features an intro that to me honestly sound like it would have a place in Korn’s self-titled from 1994. I can even catch elements of grunge in the production, and overall the mixing does sound as though it could be from the 1990s.

However, Chat Pile is not derivative of either aforementioned band, or any band for that matter. I don’t believe Chat Pile tries to accomplish one particular sound, but they’ve combined a lot of different heavy types of music into one melting pot that simply works. While they have elements that may sound like other artists, they still hold an overall style that is all their own. It’s a consistent album from beginning to end, with no weak points, but several strong and memorable riffs and vocal deliveries. I don’t know any bands that sound just like them, or even similarly. They bring new life to the genre that is sludge metal, of which I am typically not a fan. While they fit the overall sludge umbrella, they don’t sound like any other band under that general label. The music sounds muddy, but it’s a wonderful stylistic choice, representative of frustration and anger. I feel like it captures the landscape of living in the United States in the modern day and age. I personally don’t have too much of a personal connection to the album despite it being super enjoyable to me, and pretty nostalgic. The lyrics are well-written though they are simple to understand thematically, and they match the landscape of the music very well, more so of a cherry on top than a focal point. It is refreshing to see an album like this gain immense popularity when there are more overblown and technically superior options out there, because sometimes we just need to express ourselves explicitly and in a raw manner, which this band has certainly mastered.