Chat

On the surface, and let’s be honest, underneath the surface too, Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo make unlikely collaborators. The intersection of DIY noise rock and instrumental guitar soli (as John Fahey called it) has been a lonely crossroads, but somehow the Oklahoma City musicians make it look like a fruitful place to cut deals and hatch plots. 

Both Pedigo and Chat Pile have some things in common—locale being the most obvious, since Hayden grew up in the Texas Panhandle. And both have clearly figured out how to attract an audience to their usually marginal styles of music, in ways that go beyond talent—there are plenty of turbulent weirdos and skilled Fahey acolytes out there in the dingy burgs of the fading frontier, but few have headlined Dutch heavy-music festivals (Chat Pile) or modeled on a fashion runway (Pedigo). In the Earth Again (October 31) provides a look at what makes each of these artists stick out, and what might bind them together.

At least since Metallica’s The Black Album, it’s been no secret that heavy dynamics can pair surprisingly well with melodic elements. Chat Pile tweaks the formula by hinting at consonance while jettisoning commercial metal’s production values. With Pedigo’s cleanly picked yet brooding lines supporting their corroded textures and raw nerves, Chat Pile’s sound achieves a new kind of sweep. Pedigo’s studied approach, meanwhile, gains an unsettling focus often lacking in his sometimes overly streamlined compositions. Hardcore fans of either band might object first—on tracks like glittering instrumental opener “Outside,” Chat Pile’s violence has been curbed, while the pummeling howl of cuts like the “Never Say Die!” submerge Pedigo’s thoughtful starkness underneath a wave of numb, mutilated fury. 

But even when disappearing in service of the other artist, both Chat Pile and Pedigo come off somehow stronger. Their shared vision of the forgotten Southwest, curdled cowboy illusions, and grubby rural-suburban dystopia packing a powerful punch. Some effective blends do occur, merging Pedigo’s forlorn twang with Chat Pile’s unhinged bluster, as on doomer anthem “The Magic of the World,” or “Demon Time,” which features exquisitely bleary vocals from Raygun Busch and a thorny Pedigo lead, all set off by tolling death-chords from Chat Pile guitarist Luther Manhole and bassist Stin. And the contrast of CP drummer Cap’n Ron’s remorseless, wet-cement rhythms with Pedigo’s barbed burble (check out the deranged “Fission_Fusion”) always delivers a jolt. The track with the best title on the album, “I Got My Own Blunt to Smoke,” shows Pedigo at his unadorned best, while the middle section of “Radioactive Dreams” is a blast of chugging ache—pure, uncut Chat Pile. 

The real surprise, though, lies in how this collaboration reveals the feral streak that has always run through Pedigo’s acoustic guitar meditations, and the thwarted tenderness that lies at the heart of Chat Pile’s wounded roar. Wordless country-blues and scarred, sludge-laden laments both turn out to be different strains of Americana, a hopeless, disfigured shadow country that might form the republic’s true face.