ALBUM REVIEW: Chat Pile – Who Loves The Sun

The Flenser

Released: 04.09.26

It wasn’t supposed to end up like this. 2019. Four fellas quietly release an EP which melds their encyclopaedic command of glorious noise with outrageous lyrics, delivered by a frontman who sings as if he’s peering over the edge of sanity and is perilously close to taking the plunge.

Every day, DIY geniuses do this the world over, casting mini-masterpieces out into the dense ether of the world-wide-web stratosphere. They don’t necessarily care if it yields a long-term career in rock; they simply have passion, chops and something to say. Maybe their friends will listen, maybe they’ll sell out a launch gig, but they’re simply doing it for the love of the craft, for the love of creative expression. Chat Pile’s This Dungeon Earth was likely one of 250,000 releases that were cast out into the world in this way.

Across four furious tracks, you got the sense that the quartet had poured a great deal of heart and soul into the project; brutal and pulverising music which didn’t reach for accessibility (it’s virtually mixed in mono with thick, foggy layers of noise and grime) and didn’t beg to be loved.

On paper, it simply shouldn’t have been the catalyst for one of the greatest and most fundamental songbooks in 21st century music. Alas, the algorithm had plans for them.

Seven years, numerous releases (a glorious follow-up EP, two masterpieces of LPs and countless singles) later, Oklahoma City’s finest are back with Who Loves The Sun, a bewildering, towering monument which maintains the band’s impeccable and stunning track record and achieves the unthinkable: it’s somehow better than 2022’s immortal God’s Country and 2024’s astonishing Cool World.

Avid Chat Rats will likely be stunned at this, as those two aforementioned LPs are arguably some of the most visceral, innovative and enthralling releases of the decade and century so far, raising the bar unfathomably high for LP3.

Everything you know and love about Chat Pile is here: a gloriously dynamic, varied sound. Brutal, phenomenally well-written lyrics, the visceral interplay between guitarist Luther Manhole and bassist Stin; drummer Cap’n Ron still manages to command the fiercest and thundering displays of tub-thumping on a sampled electronic drumkit.

However, it’s clear that the band are still finding incredible ways to refine and innovate their wonderfully singular sound. Who Loves The Sun finds their formula being shaped further; song structures are more kaleidoscopic and relentless, frontman Raygun Busch (not his govt. name, before you ask) has always commanded one of the most powerful voices in the game, but he’s the most assured and dynamic he’s ever been. If you thought his vocals sounded more dextrous and varied in lead single Deep Blue, just wait until you get stuck into the LP proper.

Lyrics, as always, remain astonishing. Raygun is a cultural sponge with a voracious appetite for music, film and literature and it shines through in his glorious command of wordplay and world-building; this makes for a glorious reward once you wrap your head around the pulverising sheets of noise and start to really appreciate the phenomenal personality and wit at the heart of the LP (it’s diabolically hilarious that the pinnacle of this can be found on a song titled PEN I S MALL.

The relentless touring and honing of craft has all paid off, with the band truly reaching a new echelon altogether across 10 brutal and cathartic bangers, with the likes of Shrine and Christabel ‘26 ranking as some of Chat Pile’s most brutal and gut-wrenchingly abrasive transmissions yet; an astonishing achievement when you consider that this band’s debut LP kicked off with Slaughterhouse.

The band have always had a versatile command of a slower-tempo scuzz-fest (refer to Pamela, Funny Man) but I continue to be astonished at the slow-burning step forward in Same Rules and the overall stronger command of dynamics which the band continue to harness throughout the LP.

All in all, Who Loves The Sun is another glorious reminder of how lucky we are that Chat Pile somehow managed to ascend in such a difficult and uncertain era for DIY music; where popularity and success cannot necessarily give wholly independent bands the ability to stick it out for ‘the long run’ and have the ability to craft such an extensive and versatile body of work. It’s another innovative, breathtaking and essential release from one of the most visceral and important bands in the game.