{"id":8259,"date":"2026-10-19T14:24:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T20:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/?p=8259"},"modified":"2026-10-19T16:47:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T22:47:16","slug":"chat-piled-at-the-gothic-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/2026\/10\/19\/chat-piled-at-the-gothic-theater\/","title":{"rendered":"Chat Piled at the Gothic Theater"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chat Pile at Gothic Theatre Denver, Sep 20, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For such an involved show, I will divide my review into three parts: the music, the feel, and the performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The music is sludgy, muddy, dry, acidic, acrid: topical. Chat Pile\u2019s self-proclaimed noise rock and audience-proclaimed sludge metal sound encapsulates all the hidden, overlooked, and downright devastating aspects of late-capitalist American life. As the rugged guitars of \u201cShrine\u201d describe inherent alienation in evangelical religion or the weighty lyrics of \u201cwhy do people have to sleep, outside?\u201d on \u201cWhy,\u201d we cannot help but be<\/em> angry. The world is absurd, and Chat Pile plays their tune to that endless march we all trudge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bass and screeching vocals of Raygun Busch harken to the feeling of falling down stairs in an Escher painting, continuously tumbling and going nowhere. Though I believe that is what the lyrics and sound want you to feel. You feel welcomed in this community of absurd rage as we all call attention to \u201cGod\u2019s Country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feel of the show was raucous. I would describe it as a hivemind, one person moving to the music in the same manner as another, perfectly in sync with each other body in the room as the distorted tones and harsh vocals motivated the movement. We were together. We were one. There is something about metal as a genre that does this better than any other kind of music I have heard live. Juxtaposed to the anger, ferocity, sludge of the music was just how elated, joyous, and whimsical the crowd was moshing to and fro. Everyone there creates an ephemeral community for that hour and a half that will only exist within that moment and our remembrance of the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My cousin asked me after the show why metal attracts such kind, loving, and beautiful people, young and old. Why historically anger-fueled, often demonic music almost always brings the best fans together. I believe it is the ability to unleash, in a controlled manner \u2014 a loving manner almost \u2014 our pent-up horror at the world. Having an established setting and time to find respite from the sadness and anger allows for the glow of the remarkable to become that much more apparent when we leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The performance embodied contrast. As stated, the music hits you like a factory chain to the ribs, and then Busch takes off his shirt and exclusively talks about movies that feature Denver in between each song. Point to say, they have fun up there. When you are named after a pile of nuclear waste, there is a level of dark comedy that comes preloaded into the music, so the contrast presented is almost necessary to make the topics sung about enjoyable. There is a reason my cousin and I did not leave the show feeling extremely depressed and hopeless about the state<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of the world \u2014we enjoy calling out this state, yelling, screaming at the top of our lungs along side Chat Pile. This definitively goes down as a performance of all time for me; I will be late to forget it. If they end up in your area, see them. It is a sight to behold: DEVESTATION.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chat Pile at Gothic Theatre Denver, Sep 20, 2026 For such an involved show, I will divide my review into three parts: the music, the feel, and the performance. The music is sludgy, muddy, dry, acidic, acrid: topical. Chat Pile\u2019s self-proclaimed noise rock and audience-proclaimed sludge metal sound encapsulates all the hidden, overlooked, and downright […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1837,"featured_media":8261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[359,18],"tags":[409,408],"class_list":["post-8259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concert-reviews","category-shows","tag-chat-piled","tag-chat-piled-at-the-gothic-theater"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/files\/2026\/10\/Screenshot-2026-10-19-at-10.38.23-AM.png?fit=1504%2C1494","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa7fJU-29d","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1837"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8259"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8262,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8259\/revisions\/8262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}