CHAT PILE & HAYDEN PEDIGO Announce Collaborative Album In The Earth Again

The sprawling expanse of the American heartland is many things: picturesque as it is desolate, familiar as it is alien. Few landscapes embody such stark contrasts, and it’s no wonder that the endless highways and forgotten towns of the deep countryside have long been synonymous with post-apocalyptic imagery.

While the rural decay of so-called “Flyover Country” carries a bleak horror, there’s also a tragic stillness and beauty within it — a paradox that Oklahoma noise rockers Chat Pile and Texas-born, Oklahoma-based guitarist and composer Hayden Pedigo masterfully capture on their upcoming collaborative LP, In The Earth Again.

The record, due out October 31, 2025, unravels unexplored layers of complexity for both artists. On the surface, Pedigo‘s fingerpicked acoustic meditations and Chat Pile‘s abrasive noise rock seem worlds apart, yet the two share more in common than initially meets the eye. Both are residents of rural America with a taste for the strange and the eclectic. Their paths first crossed in Oklahoma City’s underground/DIY art scene following Pedigo’s relocation, forming a friendship that eventually crystallized into a bold artistic collaboration.

In The Earth Again allowed each act to experiment beyond their established boundaries. For Chat Pile, it was a chance to explore moodier arrangements, embrace tape and sample manipulation, and deliver some of the most intimate and personal lyrics of their career. For Pedigo, the collaboration provided the opportunity to reframe his typically tranquil, atmospheric country soundscapes with something more sinister and metallic, while retaining their evocative emotional core.

“We all wanted to avoid the downfall you see in a lot of collab records,” explains Pedigo. “We didn’t want this record to either end up primarily sounding like one of us more than the other.”

Chat Pile bassist Stin adds: “For the album, every decision made was in support of each other’s ideas and making sure that everything we did was in service of a greater vision.”

The first single, “Radioactive Dreams,” offers a glimpse into that vision, shifting between rustic tones, snarling aggression, and moments of tragic catharsis.

Framed through a loose but ever-present narrative soaked in apocalyptic subtext, In The Earth Again paints a portrait of societal collapse — from the brutality of an active apocalypse to the eerie stillness that lingers in its aftermath. Across its thirty-six minutes, the record cycles between haunted beauty and unflinching aggression, embodying both the violence and quiet of a dying world. The striking cover artwork comes courtesy of Malcolm Byers. Pre-orders are available here.