ALBUM REVIEW: Chat Pile – Who Loves the Sun


In many ways, Chat Pile’s new album Who Loves the Sun (The Flenser) ironically feels like their Sunbather (Deafheaven). The album will elevate them to a new level as artists not made for radio airplay. You might even think these guys are going to take Noise-Rock to the mainstream. Still, it has pivoted from the hard and fast definition of that genre as a grim post-Grunge sonic effigy of society’s collapse, to one that these songs blame apathy for being the chief motivator. Maybe there is some truth to that theory, but to be honest, I don’t care.    Continue reading


END OF POSTSRAVAGANZA: Tim Ledin’s Top 20 (and More) Albums of 2025


2025 was yet another year where I spent a Sunday in November sweating buckets trying to cut down all of the music I’ve listened to in the current year to twenty albums as part of the Ghost Cult staff voting. Each year is a mix of pain and pleasure, and 2025 was certainly a difficult one. Before I unveil my Top 20, here are some Honorable Mentions, in no particular order, that you should add to your library if not done already.

Continue reading


ALBUM REVIEW: Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power


Since their inception, Deafheaven have always been that band not to show where they’re going next. After releasing what some could consider their magnum opus in Sunbather (Deathwish Inc.), the band did not let that define the band they would become. Only two years later, they’d return with the far more moody New Bermuda (Anti Records/Epitaph Records). This would continue for the career they’d lead up to this point, especially in their previous efforts, Infinite Granite (Sargent House), taking the band from the Blackgaze sound they had cultivated and popularised, in search of a lighter, synthier approach. That brings us to the modern day, and it seems for all the teasing the band have done over the lead-up to their new project, Lonely People With Power, their debut release in their new deal with Roadrunner Records. This appears to be a culmination of what’s come before in one solid package, how these conflicting sounds will come together and meld is a completely different matter altogether. Continue reading