It wasn’t just the nightmarish riffs or the spine-chilling vocal performances by singer Raygun Busch that made Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile one of noise-rock’s biggest breakout stars in 2022. Hidden within their Flenser debut “God’s Country” is an acute sense of empathy for those on the fringe of our society, paralyzed and weighed down by the evils of American greed and capitalism that swing the door open for few and slam it shut for most. On the album’s standout second track “Why,” Busch eschews any sense of poetry to rub our noses in perhaps the biggest injustice facing our country: our unwillingness as the world’s richest nation to solve our own unignorable homelessness situation.
“Why do people have to live outside,” Busch belts out over the course of the song, until all of the naive connotations of such a simplistic question are flipped to the point of being an unavoidable indictment on our collective apathy. As the song’s crushing instrumental picks up momentum like an avalanche sweeping up snow grooming vehicles from the slopes and using them as tools of destruction, Busch keeps the pressure on until the song’s final moments: “Real American horror story,” he snarls in disgust, “It’s a fucking tragedy.” With “Why,” Chat Pile remind us that we don’t deserve to be let off the hook.
The Fat Angel Sings 