God's Country

God's Country is the debut studio album by Chat Pile, of Oklahoma City, released on 29 July 2022 through the Flenser. After two EPs in 2019 and a cover of Sepultura's "Roots Bloody Roots" for a label compilation, the band announced this album on 24 May 2022 alongside the lead single "Slaughterhouse", with "Why" and "Wicked Puppet Dance" following before release. They played a show in their home city on the day it came out and immediately sold out two October dates in New York. The cover is a photograph of the Oklahoma County Detention Center, where eleven people died in 2022 before the album appeared. Bassist Stin said that punitive, authoritarian hand is always right over you at any given time. The record is built on real-world horror: "Slaughterhouse" describes a beheading at a local food processing plant in 2014 and "The Mask" concerns the 1974 murder of six restaurant employees in Oklahoma City. Vocalist and lyricist Raygun Busch called "Why", a song about homelessness, the scariest song on the record. The reception was unanimous, including Best New Music from Pitchfork and places on several publications' year-end lists.