Chat Pile are exquisitely brutal on the bleak Who Loves the Sun

The 10-song set plunges into a relentless and riveting attack of hardcore, metal, and punk that serves to condemn not only end-stage capitalism but also, and more pressingly, the human curse of greed. If previous work lamented the state of the world – homelessness, disease, injustice – Sun damningly goes to the source, lamenting the fundamental nature of the human heart and, in terms of vocals, spotlights Raygun Busch at his most spellbindingly savage.

The album launches with “Creature”, blending jackhammer drums and grungy/melodic guitars. Busch moves between despair-drenched verses and apoplectic choruses. Navigating a range of rhythms, riffs, and tones, the track stands as a breathtaking tableau (“An empty world, vast and haunted,” “Every creature led to slaughter / Every city under water”). Greed and short-sightedness have ravaged our surroundings, prompting the extinction of species after species. Will homo sapiens join that list?

The result of decadence is destruction; destruction unchecked leads to apocalypse. “Let the mask become a part of your life,” Busch screams on “Deep Blue”, pointing to humanity’s myriad hypocrisies, and recalling Agent Smith in The Matrix (“Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet”). Here, Luther Manhole’s guitar progressions unfurl like blowtorch blasts, while Cap’n Ron’s drums are like drills pounding into a poisoned earth.

“No world on the outside,” Busch sings on “Same Rules”, conjuring a descent into an inescapable hell. Meds and therapy won’t fix this. Stin’s bass thunders along as Manhole’s arpeggios ring like bells swinging in a nuclear test zone. Midway, the band erupts, Busch channeling his and the world’s fragility, anguish, and rage. The track is transcendent, frothing with tension, a belligerence so extreme that it cauterises itself, bringing to mind the Hindu goddess Kali, who burns away illusions to reveal the truth.

The feeling of walking on egg shells is one of the symptoms of trauma. And despite his counterphobic bent, Busch oozes trauma both personal and collective. “Intruder” is one of Chat Pile’s more melodic pieces. That said, following an almost catchy verse, the band erupt into a demonic cacophony, guitars slicing and shredding, Busch slurring and shrieking. And yet, the piece, emotionally and compositionally, is immaculately cohesive, the dynamics exemplary, the nightmarish gestalt irreducible and indivisible; i.e., a metal/hardcore gem.

Recalling Revelation, Dante’s Hell, and segments of Milton’s Paradise Lost, “Influence” is no less than a graphic allegory on human craving and its consequences: the earth on fire, animals perishing daily, whole countries starving. “Razor blade,” Busch keeps repeating, sounding like someone waking from a coma, looking around at a world of smoke and ash, thieves poking through rubble for left-behinds. On closer “October All the Time”, meanwhile, strums, distorted chords, and feedback swirl, as Busch acknowledges how nature will survive humanity (“The sun will continue to shine”). If, however, humanity survives itself, it will exist in a fall-like limbo, perpetually withering toward winter.

With Who Loves The Sun, Chat Pile complete a trilogy of sorts. Their debut God’s Country railed against the influence of systems (religious, judicial, political, familial, cultural, etc.); Cool World embraced an expansive look at historical arcs and intergenerational conditioning, and our current state as the culmination of an evolutionary process; and Sun, while picking up on elements present in its predecessors, serves largely as an investigation into and report on humanity’s fundamental motivations. It's inarguably a bleak statement. The band’s virtuosic instrumentation and Busch’s enthralling vocals, however, make for an ironically life-affirming manifesto.

Leave it to Chat Pile to turn a compendium of horrors into something exquisite.