Gig Review: Chat Pile at bush hall
Few artists can entertain and delight a crowd the same way that Chat Pile can; with Ray B bringing his movie knowledge in tow to entertain a Bush Hall crowd on the way to Arctangent later that week: as a warm-up show it works wonders, namedropping everything from A Muppets Christmas Carol to Mike Leigh
As anyone who has seen his Letterboxd before will tell you, Raygun Busch knows what he’s talking about when it comes to films. Much of his mid-set cooldown comes namedropping films made in the area that the gig is; or in the case of the Trainline stage at Primavera in Barcelona where they played in 2025, referencing films about trains.
It provides a break for both the hyper-intensity of the scrappy Oklahoma City-based quartet and their fans – who are unrelenting in a sweaty mosh pit even in the heat. It’s a raw honest show designed to connect the audience with art in all its medium, this time out we get a healthy dosage of book recommendations and everything from The Conjuring 2, about the con-artists known as the Warrens, which led to the scary Nun being the highlight but the movie in which featured the Nun herself being bad. The human essence that shows Ray B unafraid to improvise these film picks shows a need to connect and embrace the crowd; breaking out of the human indifference in favour of a sense of togetherness; a real rage against the machine: open battle cries are declared against the laziness of artificial intelligence – a call to arms – this is Chat Pile embracing the political nature of being a heavy band.
‘God’s Country’ gets the runaround in full, as Ray B drifts between name-dropping Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and The Muppets Christmas Carol; scolding the audience for being unfamiliar with Leigh’s Naked. The noise rock icons gave us such an onslaught of sound that really embraces the riff and encourages a riot. Stin’s bass is incredible and Cap’n Ron’s drums are propelled forward for maximum impression – almost destroyed. We get ‘Face’ early on: an onslaught of paranoia and alienation – as the band refuse to shy aware from tackling America’s toxic quest for wealth and oil in ‘Tropical Beaches Inc’, perfectly designed for those to complain about Chat Pile embracing politics when they’ve always been a political band. Ray B knows what he’s talking about with endless howls that break up the spoken word in style, embracing the chaos at every turn. We slow down for an ode to the cultural institution that is the BFI – and are back in the sweatbox again – pure unrestrained mayhem.
New songs, ‘Deep Blue’ steamroll their way with an embrace of melody and hooks – for Stin, it’s a classic/alt-rock influenced album that pays a lot towards the XTC and the hooks are readily apparent across the band. Part of the charm in Chat Pile is finding what doesn’t work – what shouldn’t work - as Chat Pile songs and turning them into Chat Pile songs, which is what separates them from your average imitator or nostalgia act. This is perhaps shown in ironic lead single ‘PEN I SMALL’ which shares an ode to the ironic Yard Act and Getdown Services style humour turned into a breakneck pace – Metal Hammer called the band “beautifully ugly” and it is very easy to see why the second you adopt the lyrics and become familiar with them – there’s a touch of class here, a political undercurrent that comes for the rapidly fast-built data centres around the world that show how quickly a rage against artificial intelligence can turn into a minefield, and how quickly humanity could move to build something if there’s profit involved above human need.
‘PEN I SMALL’ feels like a reference to Raygun’s time in Perth working at a mall in OKC, associating it instantly with Simon Malls and the Property group – the Simon says lines being used to reference the overworked demands for little pay of mall work. It’s a deeply local problem made universal – Raygun’s performance of screams is harrowing and emotionally complex that really adds to a touch of brutality. It is bluntly: the heaviest Chat Pile have got to date and that is reflected in the crowd – exploring how capitalism overcomes what could’ve been a fun gig and turning it into an absolute nightmare. The lyrics are funny at times – a touch of black humour deployed here and there – and they work wonders in a live setting.
Having seen the band now perform twice, ‘I am Dog Now’ is always a highlight live; visceral and powerful in the best way that only Chat Pile can be, pure brilliance at work. By the end of the set they have the audience appropriately coming back, begging for more with ‘Rainbow Meat’ and ‘Funny Man’ – unrelenting onslaughts that really capture the environment that the band are in nicely; and ‘Funny Man’ plays to Ray B’s touch of humour throughout the set. Now two years later it feels like the perfect set closer – experimenting with the vocals and feeling downright possessed when played live, pure undistilled carnage that just sees a natural progression into a noise rock version of Korn at times – able to reinvent the genre at every turn. This is textbook Chat Pile – capable of making any genre that you would not associate with them normally and turn it into their own.
Photography By: Ryan Lawson