In The Earth Again review: Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo’s doom haze

The “Triassic Cuddle” is a story told in fossils. 250 million years ago, an amphibian we know as the Broomistega wandered into a burrow containing a protomammal called the Thrinaxodon. In 1975, archaeologists discovered their skeletons intertwined – these creatures, it was speculated, were brief companions before a disastrous flood killed them both and preserved their union forever. The facts of their relationship are immaterial in the face of the fossil’s heartbreaking poetry: almost immediately, the mind conjures two opposites desperately coming together to find some comfort and meaning in the face of annihilation.

In the Earth Again is its own kind of Triassic Cuddle, with a odd couple creating real beauty despite surrounding torment. The album brings together Oklahoma City noise rock group Chat Pile with Hayden Pedigo, a Texas-based guitarist known for his lustrous acoustic fingerpicking. Chat Pile make music with a vicious, righteous fury, its sound scabbed over with distortion; Pedigo’s work follows the serene waves of other acoustic soloists like his idols John Fahey and Robbie Basho. Strange bedfellows? On paper, perhaps. But the shock of their union passes quickly, with their respective strengths bolstered by an invigorating new dynamism.