Like the towering mounds of toxic waste from which it gets its namesake, the music of Oklahoma City noise rock quartet Chat Pile is a suffocating, grotesque embodiment of the existential anguish that has defined the 21st Century. It figures that a band with this abrasive, unrelenting, and outlandish of a sound has stuck as strong of a chord as it has. Dread has replaced the American dream, and Chat Pile’s music is a poignant reminder of that shift – a portrait of an American rock band molded by a society defined by its cold and cruel power systems.
Besides being the name of a largely forgotten (and panned) 90s film, Cool World makes for an apt title of Chat Pile’s sophomore full-length record. In the context of a Chat Pile record, the words are steeped in a grim double entendre that not only evokes imagery of a dying planet but a progression from the band’s previous work, moving the scope of its depiction of modern malaise from just “God’s country” to the entirety of humankind. “Cool World covers similar themes to our last album, except now exploded from a micro to macro scale, with thoughts specifically about disasters abroad, at home, and how they affect one another,” says vocalist Raygun Busch.
Though very much on-brand with Chat Pile’s signature flavor of cacophonous, sludgy noise rock, the band’s shift to a global thematic focus on Cool World not only compliments the broader experimentations it employs with their songwriting but also how they dissect the album’s core theme of violence. Melded into the band’s twisted foundational sound are traces of other eclectic genre stylings, with examples of gazy, goth-tinged dirges to abrasive yet anthemic alt/indie-esque hooks and off-kilter metal grooves only scratching the surface of what can be heard in the album’s ten tracks. “While we wanted our follow-up to God’s Country to still capture the immediate, uncompromising essence of Chat Pile, we also knew that with Cool World, we’d want to stretch the definition of our “sound” to reflect our tastes beyond just noise rock territory,” reflects bassist Stin. “Now that we had some form of creative comfort zones in place after hitting that milestone of putting out a full-length record, album #2 felt like the perfect opportunity to challenge those limits.” Besides stylistically stretching the boundaries of the Chat Pile sound, Cool World is also the band’s first record to have someone else handle mixing duties, with Ben Greenberg of Uniform (Algiers, Drab Majesty, Metz) capturing and further amplifying the quartet’s unmistakably outsider and folk-art edge.
The proverbial thread tying all of the experimentation on Cool World together is the depth to which Chat Pile dissects the album’s theme of violence. Whether it be the cycle of creating and passively consuming literal and figurative violence on sister tracks “Camcorder” and “Tape”, the diminishment of crimes against humanity by way of foreign policy and colonialism on “Shame”, or the mental anguish of hopelessness on “The New World”, Cool World is an apocalyptically bleak record. Sure, Chat Pile’s debut album was plenty disturbing with its B-movie-inspired interpretation of a “real American horror story”; what Chat Pile depicts on Cool World is unsettling not just from its visceral noise rock onslaught, but from depicting how all sorts of atrocities are pretty much standard parts of modern existence. In
film terms, think something like a Criterion arthouse film by way of schlocky grindhouse splatterfest: undeniably gratuitous and thrilling in the moment but leaving a looming dread in the back of one’s mind for how close the horrors depicted mirror reality.
“If I had to describe the album in one sentence,” explains Busch, “It’s hard not to borrow from Voltaire, so I won’t resist – Cool World is about the price at which we eat sugar in America.”
Cool World will be released via The Flenser on October 11, 2024
Mamaleek is an enigmatic experimental band hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area, known for their eclectic fusion of black metal, jazz, blues, and electronic music. Originally formed by two anonymous brothers, the band has built a reputation for their haunting soundscapes and thought-provoking lyrics, often exploring themes of existential dread, societal decay, and personal turmoil. Their elusive nature, combined with their genre-defying music, has garnered a cult following and critical acclaim. Mamaleek’s discography showcases a relentless pursuit of artistic innovation, with each album pushing the boundaries of conventional music and challenging listeners to engage deeply with their complex compositions.
Mamaleek’s most recent album, Vida Blue, deals heavily with the passing of the band’s keyboardist, Eric Livingston, interweaving this personal loss with a narrative centered around the legendary baseball player Vida Blue.
Vida Blue is a person, moment, and memory, together the crystallization of apocalypse: “unveiling,” “disclosure.”
After two decades of timeless records, Oklahoma City’s Traindodge continues their post-hardcore dynasty with the release of their eighth LP, The Alley Parade, on Spartan Records. Yet, while the band’s collection of canonized albums have become required listening for every budding heavy band since the 90s, and their legacy of hundreds of shows (sharing stages with the likes of Mudhoney, Cursive, Avail, and Botch, to name a few) has impacted thousands, perhaps the biggest mystery surrounding Traindodge is how under-the-radar this band has flown throughout its prolific career. Whether it be a nod to the band’s integrity or an unwillingness to conform for commercial success, as journalist Jason Heller put it, “Unlike the hordes of post-hardcore wannabes who think screams, noise and posing make the band, Traindodge synthesizes brainpower and horsepower into a contorted, rock-heavy wallop that’ll leave you scratching your head as much as banging it.”
But let’s start at the beginning.
In 1993, brothers Jason and Rob Smith joined bass guitarist Chris Allen in a pre-existing band. Over the next three years, the three musicians connected deeply over a shared love for the harder side of indie rock – Fugazi, The Jesus Lizard, Jawbox, and much of the already buzzing Kansas City scene. After endless amounts of writing and some natural lineup shifting, Traindodge was born.
“At the time, the loftiest goal I had was to go on tour and if we were lucky, make one album. I figured we’d maybe last three to five years. That’s a long time when you’re 22. None of us knew anyone who’d had a band that long,” says Jason Smith (vocals/guitar). “One thing that shifted for me [early on] was realizing that the more I invested myself in the band, the more satisfying it got. Getting on the road and meeting like minded people confirmed for me that even the midwest can seem like a bigger place. Even through the flimsy ‘networks’ we were stumbling through in our first few years, I could gradually see the reality of being that band that traveled around and woke up some unsuspecting crowds. Maybe it’s a defect I have, but I just found that lifestyle really addictive. I still love it. Even in the down times we’ve had, I’ve always felt like I’m where I belong.”
Fast-forward twenty seven years later, The Alley Parade is the band’s eighth full length record, and first since 2016. The lineup also features second guitarist Ross Lewis who joined Traindodge full time in 2011. “We’ve been chipping away at writing this record more or less since the last one came out, which, with all of us not in the same city, and a global pandemic to boot, took a sec,” says Rob Smith (drums/synth). “Some of these songs were written in 2017, and some were finished weeks before we went into the studio last year. That gives the newer songs a more spontaneous feel, while the older ones feel a bit more ‘lived in,’ and I think that’s a strength of the record – it is the most immediate, accessible thing we’ve ever done.”
While new in approach in some ways, longtime listeners of Traindodge can rest assured that The Alley Parade packs just as much grit and punch as any of its recorded predecessors. “The way we write music now is very much the way we were doing it in the 90s when we started, which is everybody in the room facing each other,” says Jason Smith. With such an extensive catalog and with such unprecedented changes in both the production and consumption of music, it is nothing short of remarkable that the band has maintained such a steady and creative drive. “When our first album came out in 1999, my brain immediately felt this huge invisible clock starting. Our discography had started, for better or worse,” Smith continues. “If we had a better album in us, we had two to three years to get there without looking like divas. But I don’t know – as a music fan, I just apply that sense of responsibility to ourselves to make a document before too many years pass. Decades later, I still feel that invisible clock.”
As artists grow and mature, their sources of inspiration often follow. After finding it difficult to connect with the massive outpouring of music in the early 2000s, members of the band stumbled into a timely reunion with the music of Rush while on tour. “We stayed up and watched a whole DVD and had an insanely fun time,” says Jason Smith. “Some of those songs take me back to junior high when I was first really starting to explore music. I realized then that that was the most fun I’d had listening to music in years. It scratched an itch that I didn’t realize I had. For me, that sort of started the whole fascination with going back to the music we grew up with and exploring more. Went back and got reacquainted with Rush, Thin Lizzy, Blue Oyster Cult, Sabbath, ZZ Top, etc. We never really looked back. We gradually became more of a rock band after that.” The fingerprints of all of these sources of inspiration, combined with the hallmark tenacity of every previous Traindodge release is abundantly present on The Alley Parade.
To bring the record to life, the band returned to RCRD in Atlanta, Georgia to record their third consecutive album with Dan Dixon. “We’ve known Dan for years, having toured a ton with his old band, Dropsonic,” says Rob Smith. “There’s something to be said about working with someone who both knows you so well personally and the way your band sounds. Sonically, he knows exactly how we’re supposed to sound, so we can get to things a lot faster. At the same time, he’s great at getting us to try things that we might not otherwise, which is super valuable.” The session lasted one week, and the band was able to track the entirety of The Alley Parade in that time. Lyrically, much of the record stems from an ebbing meditation on both loss and the process of reflection, and the title of the record itself directly points in the direction of the thematic content, highlighting the notion of its duality. “[The title] is bleak, bizarre and hopeful all at once,” says Jason Smith, “the album sort of sounds like that, too.”
At a certain point in a band’s career, certainly one with the longevity and endurance of Traindodge, creating music is no longer something you want to do, but rather something you need to do. The legacy of this band already stands on its own, and it is nothing short of a gift that listeners keep receiving additional offerings from the band. “The band remains front and center in my mind every day,” says Jason Smith. “Having an outlet like this is central to my well being. I realize I’m a balanced person because of it. To that end, I do whatever I can to make it work.” “We [also] all still really like working together and spending time together,” adds Rob Smith, “and we’re super grateful to have people still really care about what we’re doing after all these years. It’s about the most fun, rewarding thing I can think of, so why stop? If you have not created the space in your life to dig into Traindodge’s illustrious catalog, please wait no longer. If you are a longtime listener, prepare yourself for The Alley Parade which is available everywhere now.
