Chat Pile slum it more than usual for an album that ultimately comes up a little short for their lofty expectations.
Release date: September 4, 2026 | The Flenser | Instagram | Twitter | Bluesky | Bandcamp
So, let’s lead with the fact that I’m a big, big fan of Chat Pile. Ever since God’s Country, they’ve put out some of the most biting art contending with modern malaise caused by industrial hell and capitalistic overreach this decade. They’re without a doubt an indie darling and will continue to be I’m sure. Which is why I’m pained to confront the fact that I think we’ve had a bit too much of them in the last few years and it shows in the reception I’m left with giving Who Loves The Sun.
This new album is Chat Pile through and through, but therein is part of the issue. I feel like we’ve heard many aspects of it before, despite its different theming slants. God’s Country was more of the micro look at issues mostly domestically, giving us forever songs like “Why” and maybe implicitly presenting a chance to do something about it all. It felt prescriptive, like a diagnosis; there was hope still. Cool World expanded to a macro scale by including how we’re all just watching live-streamed genocide and murder happening now and we can’t manage to do anything of import about it – this is how the world died. Who Loves The Sun to me is somewhat about the aftermath of that, where apathy has totally taken over making us retreat into any creature comforts we can still afford to engage with, but the world is cloaked in permanent overcast like a lifeless nuclear winter. What the fuck do we do now? The same shit we’ve been doing.
In that sense, I guess my perceived interpretation of Chat Pile‘s sonic comfort and repetition becomes a sort of meta context. If Chat Pile were and are the reflection of our worst tendencies as humans and how they impact the working class and subjugated among us, why would they change things up when we as a society have done nothing of the sort? Listen to “Deep Blue” and recognize just how much we’ve wasted – potential, our time, etc. – being sucked into an attention deficit economy that drains us every single day. The lyrics ricochet around your head moaning ‘we move deeper into screens/into the deep blue sea‘. “PEN I S MALL” sees Chat Pile put together one of their more aggressive songs on here to interrogate the slavery capitalism subjects us all to. The line ‘hard to think, but your whole life can pass as a series of acts of subordination‘ goes so hard, but is also depressing. Sure, this is mostly all stuff you’ve heard before, certainly ain’t bad, but it’s also not refining what we know any further. Again, that somehow may be part of the point.
To get a little more positive, as much as I can talking about Chat Pile, I found a lot more to talk about in their slower tracks which is funny because I usually favor their faster, sludgier fare. “Same Rules” is one such single, muffled and destitute, a creeping tone prominent throughout that really lends itself to the song’s apocalyptic flair with a hook like ‘no world on the outside‘ that totally submits to defeat and isolation. The band apparently wanted to focus some more on hooks with Who Loves The Sun which I struggle to find the payoff in personally, but this one hits because of how down it is. It feels horrible – I love it.
There’s other similar moments like in “Family Funeral” which is doomed to oblivion and off-putting (compliment, I think), but is ultimately upbeat comparatively. Where my ears really sat was on the closer, “October All the Time”. I think this is one of the best songs Chat Pile have written. It’s a short track, the shortest on this album which already bucks tradition where the longest track tends to be at the end, but it makes sense why it is this way. This song is probably the saddest and most distraught the band have been outside of “A Tear for Lucas” on their collab album with Hayden Pedigo. It’s like they laid out the feeling of seasonal affective disorder across three minutes and twenty-three seconds with dirge-like guitars that may escalate in power as the song progresses, but never leave their seat in the minor key. What’s worse is one of the only charitable lyrics in this song, ‘everything will be fine‘, feels like a lie we tell ourselves before we die in some horrible way, leveraged as the platitude it is when we say it to people.
In many ways, Who Loves The Sun feels stagnant, just like how we as a people are stagnant. Hard to fault the band for being the societal mirror they are, but I also just got less raw enjoyment out of it as well. There’s not really anything on this album approaching the catchiness of that one riff from “Frownland” – you know the one. Not much belts quite like “I Am Dog Now” or “Tropical Beaches, Inc.” did. This album’s pocket was in the bombed-out atmosphere that graced a few songs and that’s where its biggest value lies for me. It’s fine. It’s fine! We are not fine, but Chat Pile are fine. Their rise has given shine to many new or established bands in the same lane and, if they’re not careful with their output, they’ll be getting lapped by their peers soon.
It’s hard to turn down new Chat Pile, but I do think we’re at a point where the band should consider an extended break to let new material metastasize and new horrors develop to have a breakdown over, lest they become an actual pile of chat; plentiful, functionally waste. Four full projects in as many years, not including their split project with Nerver, has saturated at least my conscience and therefore made Who Loves The Sun hit less hard than it may have otherwise. It’s not quite a miss, but it lacks the immediate connection that the band’s last few projects have had on first or second listen. If you just want more Chat Pile and don’t care as much about being challenged or impressed in new ways, you’ll like it just fine. I hope they surprise me more with their next one.
Band photo by Ryan Lawson
