Chat Pile have announced Who Loves the Sun, a new album that finds the Oklahoma noise-rockers following up Cool World and their 2025 collaborative record In the Earth Again with Hayden Pedigo. According to Treble, Chat Pile Who Loves the Sun will be released via The Flenser.
The title lifts from the Velvet Underground’s 1970 track of the same name, though the band are quick to defuse any weight you might attach to that. ‘Not in any profoundly meaningful way,’ they clarify. Don’t go reading cosmic significance into it.
Lead single ‘Deep Blue’ is out now, accompanied by a video set in a macabre barbershop. That alone should tell you where the record’s head is at.
Chat Pile Who Loves the Sun: What the Band Say
Singer, screamer, and songwriter Ray B. is not exactly hiding behind ambiguity in his press release statement. ‘This record focuses on my grievances with the modern world,’ he said. ‘AI, genocide, climate change, the power elite, $$$$ hoarding pigs, all that shit fucks up your life and mine. The band is definitely stretching out their abilities on the album and I too felt inspired to go further, as a huge fan of Boston, I like to think Brad Delp is somewhere up there, smiling down, as I take the layering to new heights, but who can say? We have fun with it.’
Bassist Stin expanded on the thematic thread: ‘I feel Who Loves the Sun is grappling with the challenges of trying to keep one’s humanity in a time of extreme anti-humanity.’ On the lead single specifically, Stin added: ‘I personally love this because it sounds like Chat Pile doing a Billy Squire song. It’s our “Lonely Is the Night,” which is actually a fake Led Zeppelin song so who knows what the hell we’re actually doing here?’
It’s the kind of self-aware, slightly chaotic energy that makes Chat Pile so reliably interesting. Nobody else is name-dropping both Brad Delp and Billy Squier in the same album announcement.
Collaborators and Tracklist
The record does not arrive as a purely internal affair. The Line of Best Fit reports that contributions come from Hayden Pedigo (their collaborator on In the Earth Again) alongside Nightosphere vocalists Claire Hannah and Brittany Sawtelle. Given that Portrayal of Guilt and Nightosphere both feature on the Oklahoma City SISU Fundraiser Fest date in September, the connections here are running deep.
Who Loves the Sun runs ten tracks: ‘Creature’, ‘Deep Blue’, ‘Same Rules’, ‘PEN I S MALL’, ‘Shrine’, ‘Intruder’, ‘Christabel ’26’, ‘Influence’, ‘Family Funeral’, and ‘October All the Time’. That tracklist alone (from the blunt to the elegiac) covers a lot of emotional ground.
Tour Dates: Australia, Europe, and a Big North American Run
Chat Pile are currently in the middle of an Australian and New Zealand run, taking in Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Brisbane, Adelaide, Auckland, and Wellington. European festival dates follow across the summer, including Arctangent Festival in Bristol on 22 August, the closest UK fans will get on this cycle.
The North American leg is extensive. It kicks off with an Oklahoma City hometown show in September, a SISU Fundraiser Fest alongside Portrayal of Guilt, Nightosphere, Traindodge, and Primal Brain. From there, the band work their way across the continent through to late November, with Soul Glo joining for a chunk of the run and Shallowater supporting the back-end dates. Stops include First Avenue in Minneapolis, Riot Fest in Chicago, Brooklyn Steel, and Union Transfer in Philadelphia, among many others.
The Arctangent appearance on 22 August gives UK audiences their moment. After that, it’s the North American grind all the way through to 22 November in Lawrence, Kansas.
