Chat Pile have announced their new album, Cool World, out October 11th via The Flenser. The Oklahoma City noise rock band also unveiled Fall 2024 North American tour dates and the video for lead single and album opener “I Am Dog Now.”
The outing kicks off with a hometown gig in OKC on November 1st and runs through November 22nd in Nashville. A rotating cast of support acts including Agriculture, Porcelain, Mamaleek, Traindodge, and thirdface will open select dates.
A Live Nation ticket pre-sale for select dates begins Thursday (July 18th) at 10 a.m. local time using the code STRUM. General ticket sales start Friday (July 19th) at 10 a.m. local time via Ticketmaster.
Cool World — named after the largely forgotten 1992 Ralph Bakshi film of the same name — marks Chat Pile’s second proper full-length album and the follow-up to their acclaimed 2022 debut LP God’s Country.
Our first taste of the new record comes in the form of opening track “I Am Dog Now,” a relentless sludgy pounder with vicious vocals from Raygun Busch. Will Mecca directed the accompanying video, a parody of Southern televangelism that aligns with the stark religious imagery of the Cool World album art.
“Will’s vision captures the essence of ‘I Am Dog Now’ by channeling his specific style of low-fi, exploitation cinema aesthetic into a dusty, religious bad-trip exclusive to the southern plains of America,” commented Chat Pile bassist Stin via a press release. “Eagle eyed viewers may actually notice shots of the literal chat piles from which we take our name.”
Regarding the album itself, vocalist Busch stated that it “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.”
He continued, “If I had to describe the album in one sentence… 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.”
Stin added that the band wanted to “stretch the definition of our ‘sound’ to reflect our tastes beyond just noise rock territory” on the new album. It’s also the first Chat Pile record to feature outside mixing work, with Ben Greenberg of Uniform (Algiers, Drab Majesty, Metz) handling that process this time around.
You can pre-order Cool World via The Flenser. Stream the video for “I Am Dog Now” and see the album art, tracklist, and full list of tour dates below.
Cool World Artwork:
Cool World Tracklist:
01. I Am Dog Now
02. Shame
03. Frownland
04. Funny Man
05. Camcorder
06. Tape
07. The New World
08. Masc
09. Milk of Human Kindness
10. No Way Out
Chat Pile’s 2024 Tour Dates:
09/07 – Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck
11/01 – Oklahoma City, OK @ 89th Street %
11/02 – Columbia, MO @ The Blue Note %
11/03 – Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room %
11/05 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall %
11/06 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line %
11/08 – Lakewood, OH @ Mahall’s %
11/09 – Detroit, MI @ The Majestic Theatre %
11/11 – Toronto, ON @ The Concert Hall %
11/12 – Montreal, QC @ Théâtre Fairmount %
11/14 – Burlington, VT @ Showcase Lounge @ Higher Ground ^
11/15 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church ^
11/16 – New York, NY @ (Le) Poisson Rouge ^
11/17 – Boston, MA @ The Sinclair ^
11/19 – Baltimore, MD @ Metro Gallery *
11/20 – Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry *
11/21 – Greensboro, NC @ Hangar 1819 *
11/22 – Nashville, TN @ The End *
% = w/ Agriculture, Porcelain
^ = w/ Mamaleek, Traindodge
* = w/ Mamaleek, thirdface