Chat Pile's third album, Who Loves the Sun, marks a partial rebrand toward brighter alt-rock, but the Oklahoma sludge-metal quartet's new direction lacks the distinction of their earlier releases. The album, out on The Flenser, foregrounds a love of XTC teased in the jangly riff of 2024's Funny Man.
A shift from sludge to hooks
Compared to previous albums-proper God's Country (2022) and 2024's Cool World, the structures are more dynamic, the guitars twangier and the vocals hookier. Raygun Busch's lyrics zoom out from American violence to the abstract horrors of desensitisation: “Scrolling past the screaming,” he seethes on Influence.
The band smartly tie this concept to the album's approachability. Intruder's sprightly groove, melodic chorus and rubbery guitar solo let Busch sneak in his most frightening allegory for systemic violence, a home-intruder cutting someone in their sleep. There's also a pleasing eclecticism, between the trip-hoppy Same Rules and Shrine's swingy post-rock leanings.
A disappointing overall direction
But the overall direction, a straightforward softening of their early ugliness, disappoints. Other roads were open: film score Tenkiller signalled their avant garde potential, sometimes channelling Scott Walker's Bish Bosch, while In the Earth Again's melancholic singer-songwriter tracks promised untapped emotional depths.
Chat Pile remain stuck between their debut and something equally distinctive, but there's enough here to renew faith they'll get there.
