Hi, everyone. Carthony Tunetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo project, In the Earth Again.

Here we have one of the most unlikely albums to be released in 2025. A crossover so unbelievable that even when I heard about it from the artists themselves involved, I still thought I was living in some fever dream. Of course, I am talking about In the Earth Again right here from Ohio band Chat Pile and virtuoso guitarist, as well as former Amarillo, Texas City Council candidate, Hayden Pedigo. Two respected and pretty busy underground musical acts that both have a lot of creative irons going on in the fire right now.

But in the midst of it all, they still manage to record and release an entire album here together, and hopefully complement each other despite the disparate lanes of music they each operate in. I mean, Chat Pile, for one, are known for their dystopian combination of noise rock and sludge metal, and their two latest albums are two of the best in the genres you can hear in the 2020s. Meanwhile, Hayden Pedigo has been operating for much longer comparatively, capturing his virtuoso finger-pick style guitar skills on records for over a decade now, really keeping the American primitivist tradition alive. He's also just completed a trilogy of albums Mexican Summer, the latest of which is my favorite.

On the surface, honestly, it's difficult to imagine how exactly these guys would work together. But previously, Chat Pile has released music for movies and film that operate more as like good pieces. Also, Hayden is a pretty versatile and primarily instrumental musician whose tracks sometimes have a dark streak. What's for sure is In the Earth Again, whatever it is, it's not going to sound like your typical Chat Pile album or a typical Hayden Pedigo album. And between the 11 tracks and 36 minutes of run time here, it pretty much lives up to that expectation, at least.

I will say, going into this album, though, I was not at all gripped by the singles that tease toward it. And while there are a few very loud and direct highlights in this tracklist for sure. The power of all the songs on this record collectively, I think, is shown in how well they reinforce each other versus any one hard-hitting singular moment in the mix. Take, for example, the moody, droning post-rock guitars on the track "Demon Time", which don't really do too much for me for the few minutes that they last on their own, even with Raygun Busch's dejected vocals and unnerving lyrics on top of them.

However, this track hits so much harder as a lead-up and a sequence over to the track "Never Say Die", which is a song where Chat Pile does actually bring their usual brand of crushing sludge. But now with an extra wicked atmosphere surrounding it, underscored by these twangy guitar arpeggios, which no doubt are brought by Hayden.

So yeah, between this and a few other songs on the album, Hayden's guitar work really does add so much to what Chat Pile already does. But does that theory work in reverse? Because on a song like "Behold a Pale Horse", what we essentially get is this long running instrumental cut where Hayden's plucky serene chord progressions are surrounded with a very murky dark heavy atmosphere that Chat Pile is bringing to the table, which ultimately I did not find as engaging as other moments on this record.

However, there is a surprise third pathway that Chat Pile and Hayden occasionally go down, which is they found out they can essentially make some really good depressive slowcore together with some folksy undertones, be it on the song "The Magic of the World" or later on the record here and there, too.

The more I spun this record, I'll say my biggest issue with it is that the midpoint is a bit choppy. The song "Fission and Fusion" hits really hard out of the gate with some of the loudest roaring guitars on the entire LP, but it fizzles out pretty quickly. As far as the overall sequencing on the album goes, it's very broadly placed. It doesn't really complement the songs surrounding it. If it wasn't going to, I at least wish that its progression was more interesting.

We also have "The Matador", which was a song I liked quite a bit, but I could see some Chat Pile fans taking issue with the fact that this song doesn't really sound too much different from any number of tracks from the band's past two albums. Outside of the strange drones and field recording sections that pop up in the song here and there, which again makes me think back to "Fission and Fusion", thinking, could this not have segued more effectively into "The Matador" since the whole intro was going to be this abstract long winded piece anyway? Either way, I do think these little weird experimental sonic additions do bring so much more flavor and depth to what Chat Pile is doing once again, and it's something I wouldn't mind hearing them explore more on future records with Hayden or without.

"I Got My Own Blunt to Smoke" is an okay acoustic guitar interlude that I think offsets the momentum of the album a bit. But "Radioactive Dreams" once again sees Chat Pile and Hayden going into slowcore in post-rock direction with these eerie, droning tones whaling away in the left channel as the full force of Chat Pile's guitars take up the rest of the mix. And yes, once again, while I was not blown away by this track as a teaser, it's so much more cerebral and powerful in the entire tracklist of record. Hayden's guitar work is really just gorgeous on this track, and it continues to bring out Raygun's more somber side vocally and lyrically.

Then we have what I think is the best instrumental and interlude cut on the record. And then we have the closing cut, "A Tear for Lucas", which for my money has to be one of the most devastating musical performances captured onto a record in 2025. It's this heavy, acoustic, leaning, singer-songwriter type number that's essentially in tribute to Raygun's friend who passed away, and he is just absolutely positively choked up throughout much of the duration of this performance. Just hearing him fight his way through these heartfelt lyrics is honestly something else. "It's not to say I was around / It hurt too much to watch you drown / All the things left to do / I hope it gets done / Honors you." Again, just an absolutely devastating ending, too.

A very interesting collaboration from these two artists. One where the more I listened to it, the more I was surprised to find that they actually do complement element each other better than I would have expected. On some tracks, the chemistry is not quite there or it's a bit forced for sure. But during the tracks where it does function, it functions really well. I really appreciate the effort that Hayden and Chat Pile tried to put into the overall flow of this album, because even if the midpoint is a little all over the place and rough, I really enjoyed hearing all of these tracks a lot more within the greater context of the album for sure.

Overall, I would say I loved it and would love to hear, into the future, Hayden do some more instrumentally diverse stuff and Chat Pile do some more output that just slows things down or even brings in some more instrumental subtleties here and there, which is why I'm feeling, I think, a light 8 on this record.

Anthony Fantano, Chat Pile, Hayden Pedigo, Forever.