Chat Pile Trace a Doom Loop on Third Album ‘Who Loves The Sun’

Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile has built a reputation on rendering 2020s dread in direct, human terms. Their 2022 debut ‘God’s Country’ brought raw portraits of addiction and homelessness, while 2024’s ‘Cool World’ turned philosophical, surveying the damage from climate-altered clouds. The four-piece’s third solo album, ‘Who Loves The Sun’, sits between those poles.

Frontman Raygun Busch and his collaborators use the record to imagine a world stuck in a loop, moving from personal struggle to near-future collapse. Opener ‘Creature’ targets those accelerating the climate crisis, while ‘Christabel ‘26’ uses body-swap horror as a metaphor for tech oligarchs and culture-war politicians who trade in fear. The album closes with the lo-fi ‘October All The Time’, trudging through rain and ghosts of futures yet to arrive.

Musically, the band pairs some of their most punishing writing — ‘PEN I S MALL’ is built to bruise — with spidery guitar leads and guest vocals from Nightosphere’s Claire Hannah and Brittany Sawtelle. It is heavier and more varied than before, which is the point: the terror lands harder when the hooks are there too.