Chat Pile | Hayden Pedigo: In The Earth Again [Album Review]

Chat Pile | Hayden Pedigo
In The Earth Again
Computer Students [2025]

“A haunting, heartland fever dream where noise meets stillness.”

Album Overview: Chat Pile emerged from Oklahoma City’s underground scene with a reputation for pairing noise rock’s abrasive edge with raw emotional intensity. Their songs use grotesque imagery to spotlight real-world suffering—from social inequality to environmental collapse—while their empathy burns through the chaos. Guitarist Luther Manhole, bassist Stin, drummer Cap’n Ron, and vocalist Raygun Busch operate like a tight unit of emotional exorcists. Meanwhile, Texas Panhandle native Hayden Pedigo built a career on intricate fingerpicking and cinematic folk compositions. Known for balancing surreal humor with heartfelt sincerity, Pedigo’s work captures small-town weirdness and tender introspection.

On paper, a collaboration between Chat Pile and Pedigo sounds unlikely—but In the Earth Again proves it’s a perfect fit. The album fuses Chat Pile’s scorched-earth energy with Pedigo’s stark acoustic meditations, creating a sound that captures both the desolation and fragile grace of the American interior. Rather than trading turns, they build something cohesive and unpredictable, tracing emotional and environmental collapse through alternating waves of chaos and calm. It feels haunted yet deeply human—an exploration of empathy amid extinction.

Musical Style: The record drifts between grinding heaviness and open-space minimalism. Chat Pile’s distorted basslines and pounding percussion meet Pedigo’s fingerpicked guitars in uneasy harmony, stretching across sludge, ambient folk, and cinematic drone. Field recordings, tape loops, and found sounds expand the texture, giving the album a tactile sense of place. Each song moves at its own unhurried pace, letting tension and beauty intertwine. It’s a balance between noise and stillness, where neither side compromises its identity.

Evolution of Sound: For Chat Pile, In the Earth Again marks a move toward introspection and restraint. The band trades brute force for atmosphere and subtlety, finding new emotional depth along the way. Pedigo, in turn, lets darkness creep into his usually tranquil world, revealing grit beneath the grace. Together, they build a shared musical language that’s more unified and cinematic than anything either artist has attempted before.

Artists with Similar Fire: This collaboration lands somewhere between the meditative doom of Earth’s later work and the windswept guitar landscapes of William Tyler. There are echoes of Swans’ apocalyptic tension, the Melvins’ slow grind, and John Fahey’s rural mysticism—but In the Earth Again stands apart for how it merges storytelling with sound design. It’s where doom meets Americana, heavy meets humble.

Pivotal Tracks: “Outside” opens with Pedigo’s plaintive picking, setting a fragile tone before “Demon Time” ushers in ritualistic tension. “Never Say Die!” delivers the first real eruption—Chat Pile’s rhythm section rumbling like thunder across the plains. “Fission/Fusion” pounds through its opening chaos before fading into eerie calm. “The Magic of the World” pares back distortion for a haunting near-folk ballad where Raygun’s voice turns disarmingly gentle. Closer “A Tear for Lucas” strips things down to almost nothing—just sparse guitar and naked emotion—a quiet memorial that lingers long after the record ends.

Lyrical Strength: Raygun Busch writes like someone carrying the weight of the world with a shaky smile. His lyrics mix horror and humanity, grounding apocalyptic visions in everyday sorrow—lost friends, dying towns, and small acts of love. Lines like “Before all magic is lost to time” and “You once shared the saddest thing to cheer me up” hit with quiet devastation. Through it all, he reminds us that empathy can still echo in the ruins.

Final Groove: In the Earth Again isn’t an easy record—it’s slow, heavy, and uncomfortably intimate—but that’s exactly what makes it powerful. Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo find a shared pulse in despair and beauty, turning decay into something strangely alive. It’s the sound of two worlds collapsing together and finding grace in the wreckage. You’ll feel it long after the final note fades—and it might leave you wondering what new form this unlikely alliance could take next.

CHAT PILE LINKS
Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | Computer Students

HAYDEN PEDIGO LINKS
Website | Instagram | Bandcamp | Computer Students