On November 8, Chat Pile’s Who Loves The Sun Tour arrived at District Music Hall in Norwalk, Connecticut. A city filled with its own contradictions, Norwalk seemed liked a fitting stop for a band whose music paints a picture of societal and industrial decay.
The city of Norwalk is home to a federally listed toxic waste site, and now it’s polluted with luxury apartment buildings gentrifying a diverse community. Just a few doors down from District, a building sat wrapped in construction insulation for nearly a decade. Chat Pile are a band that do nothing by accident, and that included the lineup they picked to open the night.
SHALLOWATER
Opening the evening was Shallowater, out of Texas. Three introverted musicians stepped onto the stage, and vocalist and guitarist Blake Skipper politely introduced the band while asking for a moment to plug in his guitar. The quiet hum of feedback ever so slightly rattled the snare wires on the drum kit.
Slow and methodical, Skipper’s clean, intentional vocals filled the room. I had never heard of Shallowater before, but I immediately placed their music as shoegaze with a southern drawl. Later I found out I was not far off, as the band describes their sound as “West Texas dirtgaze.”
Every so often a song would shift pace into a fuzzy post-hardcore breakdown, only to return to the calm. It reminded me of a panic attack taking over one’s thoughts, eventually self-regulating and returning to calm.
No one was talking over the music. Everyone was locked into the stage, giving Shallowater their full attention. There is a strong, humble presence to this band, intentional in how they poured their own emotions into the music and performance.
I highly suggest checking out their sophomore album, God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars. It’s only six songs, but the runtime is over 40 minutes. This is the perfect music to quiet a noisy mind, and a perfect counterbalance to Chat Pile.
SOUL GLO
Shallowater was the calm before the storm, and Philly’s Soul Glo changed the vibe in the room immediately. The punk band carries on a lineage that runs back to pioneers like Bad Brains, using their music as a platform to bring Black culture and political dissonance to the hardcore scene.
And District Music Hall was the perfect venue for Soul Glo. With no barricade and a wide GA section, stage diving and moshing were inevitable. Even frontman Pierce Jordan dove into the crowd twice, even delivering part of a song while singing in the crowd.
Soul Glo successfully turned the room into a frenzy, and primed for Chat Pile. Very powerful performance all around, but what impressed me was the age of the band members. This isn’t just some angry youth. These were grown men who have experienced the good and the bad, both in the music scene and the world at large.
If you have never listened to them before, start with their breakout album Diaspora Problems. New music is on the horizon as well, with NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT due January 2027, via Epitaph.
CHAT PILE
With fans now moving, sweaty and hungry for more, Chat Pile took the stage. The best way to describe their sound is to look no further than their name. Chat is the gravel-like waste left over from lead and zinc mining, and the piles are commonly found across Oklahoma, the band’s home state.
It’s sludge, it’s industrial, it’s an almost lethal form of grunge rock. Under the brutal sound are lyrics rooted in the world around them, often painting an uncomfortable picture of a society in decay. If you are new to Chat Pile, start with Who Loves The Sun, which is already on my own list of the best albums released this year.
Vocalist Raygun Busch spent most of the set shirtless and barefoot, walking in circles and rambling off lyrics in an angry growl. Almost like an unstable drifter, murmuring the thoughts trapped in his head, only to pause and contort his frame for a guitar breakdowns.
The mosh pit was almost as cathartic as the music. The lighting was mostly dark for the set, with occasional flashes of light spilling out from the stage onto the crowd. It felt like a trance, with fans accepting the fate of the world as it was professed from the stage. At the end of the review, you will find our fan gallery with some of favorite moments in the crowd.
As fascinating as their music, is how band absorbs and experiences the world around them, even on tour. Busch mentioned the band eating at local vegetarian ethnic restaurants. Before playing here in Norwalk, he had also educated himself on a list of not-so-great movies filmed in town, including the 2008 crime thriller Righteous Kill with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, which holds a measly 18% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Busch did the running bit all from memory, with no cheat sheet. He was so convincing that I have to imagine the band has watched every minute of every movie he mentioned, as they travel between cities. For other songs, Busch would cite inspiration from a book or another source. The playfulness in his gravelly voice makes you want to fact-check everything he says, only to realize he was right the whole time.
By the end of their set and two-song encore, I almost forgot the evening started with the laid-back opener in Shallowater. I think that’s what makes Chat Pile unique as artists. There is meaning and purpose behind everything they do, down to where they eat and who they bring on tour.
They make you want to find meaning in the world around you, knowing that when your eyes are opened, you’ll feel frustrated and uncomfortable. Maybe that discomfort makes you pay closer attention, maybe it pushes you to change something, or maybe it just makes you feel a little less alone in this decaying world.
Chat Pile concludes its US tour this month, with a festival appearance at Saddest Day in December, followed by a tour of UK and Europe in early 2027.
Didn’t see yourself in the galleries above? Check out our bonus gallery below for more crowd-surfing and mosh pit chaos! If you spot yourself, we want to hear from you! Let us know in the comments!
CHAT PILE Setlist
District Music Hall, Norwalk, Connecticut (11/8/2026)
Brutal Truth
PEN I S MALL
Creature
Tropical Beaches, Inc.
Funny Man
The New World
Deep Blue
King
Why
I Am Dog Now
Family Funeral
Rainbow Meat
Pamela
Dallas Beltway
Encore
Shame
Frownland
