Brian Six
Contributing Writer
The Oklahoma noise rock / sludge metal band are back with their third album, “Who Loves The Sun,” championing many of the same ideas that put them on the radar with continued and increasing musical maturity. In the face of a dark screen addicted world, Chat Pile delves deep into the intrusive thoughts that our psyche pushes out.
Haunting and grotesquely candid, the band asks a simple question: who loves the sun?
Chat Pile have hit a launch pad in their career with “Who Loves The Sun,” performing a packed release show earlier this month with Portrayal of Guilt, Nightosphere, Traindoge and Primal Brain at the Tower Theatre in Oklahoma City. The album also placed highly on billboard with No. 6 Indie Album Sales, No. 15 Top Album Sales, No. 12 Vinyl Albums and No. 45 Independent Albums. Chat Pile are currently on their release tour with Philadelphia hardcore staple Soul Glow, along with Virga and Shallowater.
Through sludgy riffs layered with fuzz, Chat Pile paint a hopeless image of modern life. A dying world seen through a deep blue ocean of screens, the breaking up of families, wage slavery and cities buried under ash are where Chat Pile draws their imagery.
Even the cover shows degradation; a broken down apartment building shying away from new intimidating towers of Oklahoma City. The new symbol of death and destruction; sterile and unfeeling offices where decisions that could shift the balances of the world are made.
Lyrically the album is absolutely dismal. Raygun Busch seems to have absolutely no hope for the future. “Family Funeral” is a profoundly depressing song about someone torn from their lover, family and life. This event came out of nowhere, the speaker was dumbfounded.
They gave their partner everything, everything they had and it seems that the speaker’s old life was erased once the new one took shape. To these events the speaker asks only two questions, “Where am I supposed to go? Where am I supposed to go now?”
Another set of standout lyrics appear on the track “Deep Blue” which detail losing oneself behind a mask put on for daily life, only to come home and float in a sea of screens to numb the pain. All the while they’re running out of time to take back control in life.
“Intruder” is also impressive lyrically. It takes the listener through the experience of being haunted by past trauma’s, and at the same time dreaming of the pleasant life that should’ve been as “the piper also promised.”
Musically, listeners can expect a strange, yet inspired, combination of legendary noise rock groups. Big Black, Shellac, Drive Like Jehu, and Scratch Acid are all embodied on standouts like “Intruder” and “Cristobal 26.” However Chat Pile also draws on influences like the mighty Neurosis, Thou, Crowbar and Electric Wizard shown best through tracks like “Creature” and “Family Funeral.”
They even throw in nu-metal influence on tracks like “Same Rules,” channeling the brooding energy of bands like Korn. Depending on the track, Chat Pile masterfully combines all or a select few of these influences to create eerie muddy tracks that aim to disturb.
Variety is on show in “Who Loves The Sun” as no two tracks sound the same. Most notably, the speed and aggression presented on some of the tracks is new for Chat Pile. Influence, on the tail end of the album, is a breakneck sludge beatdown next to slow evil burn of “Cristobal 26.”
“PEN IS MALL” showcases this aggression to the next level as not only are the guitars blasting pure noise, Raygun is also yelling like a deranged madman into the mic. In sharp contrast “October All the Time” is the bands first acoustic track and sounds like it belongs on an Elliot Smith b-side more so than a Chat Pile LP.
Through the hopeless imagery portrayed throughout, the question “who loves the sun” evolves into “Where is the sun, where is hope, where is the light, when will things get better?” Chat Pile doesn’t have all the answers, neither do the forces that rule the world. At a standstill between the alluded collapse of society all Chat Pile asks the listener to do, is love the sun.