New Music Reviews: Jimmy Webb and Chat Pile

It’s Oklahoma week, with two very different artists. Funky sludge metal or adult contemporary ballads?

Jimmy Webb

Yours for the Taking: The Found Songs of Jimmy Webb

2026, 8/10
It’s been a long time between drinks for Jimmy Webb. His last record came out in 2013, and it was merely duets of Webb classics like ‘MacArthur Park’ and ‘The Moon’s a Harsh Mistress’. This makes Yours for the Taking: The Found Songs of Jimmy Webb the first collection of new Webb material since 2005. As the title implies, these songs aren’t really new – instead, they’re previously unreleased compositions from his archives. For example, ‘Winter Clothes’ was written for Frank Sinatra, who dismissed it as unfinished.

Every songwriter has a trunk, and the trunk is full of songs that got tossed out of the show or were passed over when they were submitted or may have just not been finished. Detritus accumulates like a wake behind a songwriter because songwriters are loath to continue to try to promote a piece of material that has any disappointment attached to it.
Jimmy Webb, LA Times

The record opens with a 1980s-style soft-rock keyboard intro and occasionally gets too treacly, like the title track. But Webb always throws in an unexpected chord change or a clever lyric to keep things interesting, and it’s a pleasure to hear these discarded gems from a master songwriter. He’s assisted by a cast of celebrity harmony vocals, like Michael McDonald, Amy Grant, and Del Amitri’s Justin Currie.

Opener ‘Never Say Die’ is cheesy enough to sound like Christian Contemporary Music, but I adore the line “it’s just like a bunch of lies to go hunting in a pack”. ‘Winter Clothes’ is even better, a delicate melody with Graham Nash adding harmonies.

‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’ is surprisingly muscular, while songs like ‘If I Ever Get To Talk To You Again’ are fuelled by romantic regret. I love Webb’s reference to his own ‘MacArthur Park’ on ‘I Miss the Mistakes’, originally intended for Dolly Parton.

If you can handle some schmaltz, Webb’s unearthed some great lost treasures on Yours For The Taking.

Chat Pile

Who Loves The Sun

2026, 8/10
Chat Pile took their name from piles of chat, byproducts of lead-zinc mining commonly found throughout Northeastern Oklahoma. The four members are Raygun Busch, Luther Manhole, and the brothers Stin and Cap’n Ron; they adopted stage names so their employers didn’t find out about the band. Their third album centres on social media and phones, the digital leash.

We record ourselves on cheap equipment in my house. People are used to incredibly slick metal production, which to us mostly sucks ass. We do it our way and it’s weird to the average Bring Me the Horizon fan or whatever. We come from more of a punk background and refuse to use a click track, quantize drums, autotune, etc. Also all our songs are recorded live in the room with LOTS of bleed. Is it lo-fi? YES, but it’s what makes chat pile chat pile.
Stin, Reddit

On Who Loves The Sun, Chat Pile balance their sludge metal with some 1990s alt-rock influences. Sometimes they’re surprisingly funky, like a smarter Rage Against the Machine, like on ‘Pen I S Mall’. They describe ‘Same Rules’ as their version of a trip-hop song. They start and finish strongly – the opening ‘Creature’ is taut and aggressive, while ‘Family Funeral’ and the acoustic ‘October All The Time’ are a strong closing pair.