Chat Pile doesn’t sound like it would sound very good on paper: sludge punk guitars, 80s-style drum production, and scuzzy bass lines ripping beneath spoken-word diatribes about systemic poverty, grief, critiques of organized religion, and drug-induced hallucinations of Grimace, the McDonald’s character, smoking weed.

To be honest, I’m not sure it sounds that good off of paper either. There’s not much here that sounds beautiful by conventional standards.

But for all its ugliness, there is a power here that cuts through its lack of listenability and lack of hooks and grasps your attention anyway. And if you let it take you, you’re in for quite a ride.

God’s Country was one of the more hyped releases this year, capitalizing on a series of self-released EPs with that landed a record deal with The Flenser—but I somehow completely missed all of that buzz. Instead, I came upon it when a press release came into my inbox and caught enough of my attention for me to check out the single “Why.” The lyrics were more fitting for a lecture than a metal song, and were delivered almost like that same lecturer had gotten a little too worked up. Beneath this diatribe, distorted guitars churned on a Melvinsy riff while electronic drums pounded mechanically through a gated reverb that sounded like it was ripped right out of Peter Gabriel’s early solo work. I didn’t know what to think, but it grabbed my attention. I followed the rabbit to the promo for the full length, and that didn’t give me much more clarity either.

“Why” is a pretty firm sonic center for the record, some tracks skewing more atmospheric, others heavier. Vocalist “Raygun Busch” (all four members use pseudonyms) often raises his voice from his manic spoken word into a hardcore scream. At times he approaches what might be called singing, including on the shoegazy “Pamela,” the grooving “Anywhere,” and the subdued but unsettling “I Don’t Care If I Burn,” but even these moments aren’t for the average listener. The heavier moments, like opener “Slaughterhouse” or nine-minute closer “grimace_smoking_weed.jpg” are positively ghastly, even as a fan of heavy and weird music myself. Lyrically, many of the songs are based on unsavory events around their native Oklahoma City, like “The Mask” which was based on a fast food robbery where six people died.

But there’s something about God’s Country that I just can’t get away from. I’m not even sure what it is. Maybe their commitment to the sideshow? Maybe it’s just the right proportions of weirdness? In ways, it reminds me of a Bizarro version of Future Islands, with their own dramatic frontman, eschewing all semblance of popcraft in favor of darkness and chaos. I’m not sure if that makes sense—and I’m sure it makes even less sense that they’re the only other band I can think to compare them to (though I’ve seen some folks in the mewithoutYou fan group drawing that connection to—though I’m not sure I would have made it on my own). All I know is that this is one of the most singular records I’ve ever heard, and whether you love it or hate it, you can’t dispute that it is powerful.