Chat Pile

Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile named themselves after the gray hills of mine tailings that still sit over northeast Oklahoma. The Picher field supplied more than half the lead and zinc used in World War I, and the waste, called chat, was left in the open for decades. Families picnicked on it. Kids sledded down it. Nobody tied the piles to the lead in those kids’ blood until much later, and by then Picher was on its way to becoming a ghost town. The OKC quartet sounds like that debt being collected. At Radio/East on a Thursday night, they played like demolition crew, and Austin, a city that has always made room for bands willing to inflict pain, took every hit. Who Loves the Sun is the latest in a catalog that keeps getting heavier and angrier, and nothing about this set suggested they plan to let up.