It’s been just four fast years since Chat Pile’s debut, God’s Country, landed with a grimy, hefty thud. If you were paying attention at the time you might recall its widespread acclaim catching the band a little off guard but nobody can say they haven’t seized their moment. It seems as if they’ve been touring extensively ever since while putting out a string of releases and rising swiftly to the top of the noise rock… um, erm, pile.
Despite all this activity they haven’t yet run dry. Who Loves The Sun is their third album proper and initially feels like the most Chat Pile of Chat Pile records so far. Although they’re not one of those bands that finds their thing and then just hones it/bludgeons it into the ground. There’s also been stand alone singles, splits, and the experiments of last year’s fully collaborative album with Hayden Pedigo, In The Earth.
Still, you might say that Who Loves The Sun finds Chat Pile honing what is undoubtedly a bludgeoning sound and, fair enough, it sorta does, but on the other hand it sees them stretching their essential template and developing their sense of space in the arrangements. Opener ‘Creature’ is suitably apocalyptic, lurching through the rapidly advancing hellscape of a world either drowned or burned. ‘Deep Blue’ opens out their sound further to great effect and ‘Same Rules’ takes their ability to work in a more fragile mode to new heights without completely abandoning their feral growl.
They often, if just briefly, remind me of Killing Joke and the beginning of the excellent ‘Intruder’ is a fine example of this before it becomes a creepy horror tale working its way through multiple musical twists and turns including a pretty nice guitar solo and a swinging chorus elevated by bonus female vocals. Provided by Claire Hannah and Brittany Sawtelle from Nightosphere they return on ‘Influence’ where Chat Pile show off what they learnt from doing those Nirvana covers. The last couple of tunes step down with the softer conversational vocal of ‘Family Funeral’ and the final ‘October All The Time’ going fully sad ‘n’ quiet, offering us the unconvincing assurance “Everything will be fine, the sun will continue to shine”.
If you caught the Velvet Underground nod in the album title you’ll know the answer to the question ‘who loves the sun?’ is ‘not everyone’. Ba ba-ba-ba. They’re an American band. The sleeve art once again neatly captures the landscape. A burnt out shell of a building, a tent crouched in the corner of the lot, both overlooked with indifference by a gleaming corporate tower. Of course it’s still abject and discordant, the sludge-punk sound of churning horror, but that’s what you want, right? The wild shirtless lyrics of Raygun Busch? The deliciously vicious guitar of Luther Manhole? The bong rattling bass of Stin? The competent drum work of Cap’n Ron?
It’s great. It ends with the sound of a dog barking in the distance.
