Last month, industrial-noise-metal film buffs Chat Pile released their highly anticipated (by me) third full-length studio album, Who Loves the Sun. If you’ve followed their trajectory in the past few years from Cool World to In the Earth Again (with Hayden Pedigo), you know they’ve continued to deliver the raw heaviness and rage of God’s Country (2022) that put them on the map while still expanding their sound in different directions at times (mellower or more melodic) and also consistently bringing the nasty riffs back.
Bringing back the nasty riff (but slower) is one of my favorite things Who Loves the Sun has to offer, along with sounding more punishingly heavy than ever before. The breakdowns are unreal (especially on “PEN I S MALL”). It’s hard to say that one aspect of their sound stands out more than others, but Ray’s intensified screams (ex. “Shrine”) and Cap’n Ron’s thundering beats, both in the opening moments of the album and throughout, stand out to me the most. (Those of us who got to see them on this tour will attest to the tightness and cohesion of the band.) Still, they would feel empty without Stin’s rumbling, Korn-inspired bass riffs and L. Manhole’s angular noise guitar. The bleak and often chaotic soundscape needs all four elements, sometimes taking turns in different variations but always complementing or juxtapositing each other in intriguing ways.
The band started working from scratch with all new material last year and recorded the whole album in their headquarters: the same little OKC house where they practice and where they’ve recorded “pretty much” all their material, referred to affectionately as “Dust House”. They don’t use producers, and their songwriting and recording process is collaborative and insular in a way that makes their output a true product of the band members. Their values/priorities were driven home when Ray B. yelled “f*ck AI” at their recent SLC show. Chat Pile is exemplifying the creation of real, relatable, human art when we need it most.
Stin, who is also the recording engineer, said in a Decibel interview that the band went into the recording process with the intention of making the most evil-sounding Chat Pile record, and I think they’ve succeeded.
If you’re familiar with the group members’ cinephile status, or if you follow Raygun on Letterboxd, you know how important horror movies (and all movies cult/indie/avant garde/ridiculous) are to their lore. If you’ve seen them on tour, you’ve already been regaled by him on the great movies that have been filmed in your area. You’ll also notice that many, if not all, of their songs feel like they could be companion pieces to any number of bleak horror films.
You can find themes of darkness, despair (“Dallas Beltway”), paranoia (“Grimace…”), and horror, whether in literal film references (“Pamela”, “Frownland”) or as a metaphor for society (“Why?”), throughout their past catalog. Who Loves the Sun continues to evoke that darkness and horror in tracks like the lead single “Deep Blue”, which contains the line “Please be quiet, the skull is speaking” and also continues the recurring theme of masks. “Same Rules” conjures its own image of despair: “Carve my name above where I rest.” “Intruder” is a song about someone creeping into your life, living under your bed, and haunting your house. Some think the song is about the movie Parasite (more confirmation that this album was written for me), which, if true, further proves the obsession with horror films and themes of class disparity: “Dreaming ‘bout a life that’s fair and true / Cause there’s no difference between me and you”.
As evidenced by “Why?” and other previous tracks (“Send My Body to Arby’s” in “Rainbow Meat”), and still conveyed through horror imagery, Raygun’s lyrics are also often a commentary on the decline of modern society, i.e., the desensitized consumerist and online nature of America, and our depressing work culture. Similarly, the dreary desolation and brutality of the modern, burnt-out, American cityscape and the inequalities and ironies that it highlights is featured in many of their cover art photos, especially the one used for this album.
In “Deep Blue” (“We move deeper into screens”) Ray speaks to the overstimulation we’re all feeling from being online and always glued to screens. He sings of “Scrolling past the screaming…” in “Influence”, commenting on the modern dilemma of having to decide whether to ignore atrocities in order to maintain one’s sanity.
The protagonist of “Deep Blue” says “May be a bug now, but I still gotta get to work.” “Pen I S Mall” is a vicious takedown of corporate/retail culture that compares the good worker and the bad worker while pointing out that they live beneath the same boot.
Some other standout moments on the album: the Slayer-esque riffs and Godflesh-like guttural yells on “Christabel ‘26”; the “haunting” vocals contributed by the women from the OKC band Nightosphere on the tracks “Influence” and “Intruder” (shouted out by one of the band members in the Bandcamp listening party); Ray B.’s emotional breakdown and blood-curdling scream in “Family Funeral” complemented by Manhole’s dissonant and shrieking guitar taps that sound almost like a saxophone. Up until the downtrodden beginning of “October All The Time”, every song has a towering, dark energy that rumbles, pounds, and rages at you.
This is handily my favorite album of the year, not just because they’re my favorite band right now, but because they’ve cemented their formula and continued to improve upon it.
Don’t just give this one a half-assed listen. It MUST be listened to at high volume in the car or with good headphones, and with nothing else going on.
Favorite tracks: Creature, Deep Blue, Shrine.