Welcome to Janky Fresh Friday- the busiest day of the week for artists and labels to drop newly released music. Check in every Friday for a fresh squeeze.
As part of Janky Smooth’s Janky Fresh Friday series, we’ve been comparing two albums that come out on the same day.
related: Janky Fresh Friday- New Releases From Militarie Gun and Tame Impala
This week we have an album from a punk rock institution and a band creating an institution since no others exist that they can fit into neatly.
related: Janky Fresh Friday- Record Release Shows for Spiritual Cramp and Patriarchy
Danny Baraz gives us his thoughts on the unlikely collaboration between Chat Pile and singer/songwriter, Hayden Pedigo and Rob Shepyer delves into an all time personal favorite that’s back and still has something to say- Guided by Voices.
Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo- “In The Earth Again” Computer Students
Once the initial shock of “In The Earth Again”, the full length collaboration album between Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile and Amarillo Texas’ Hayden Pedigo wears off, what’s left is a surprisingly cohesive concept album between kindred spirits. The contrast in bodies of work is miles apart in sound but the final product reveals a deep connection. It’s hard to tell if humans have the attention span or open mind to consume high brow, “end times” concept albums anymore but Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo have produced just that.
Chat Pile has become an obsession of mine since I first got captured by 2022’s, God’s Country. They are not metal, they are not punk, they are not “grunge” and they are not alternative but yet, they are all of those things- including noise rock. In fact, if you scroll through the genres listed on all their EP’s, singles and full length’s, most of those are listed on one album or another. I saw them live for the 2nd time a few weeks ago as main support on tour for Fleshwater at the Fonda Theater and, for the first time in a long time, I felt the spirit of Fugazi in the room with us.
related: Smashing The Status Quo w/ Fleshwater at The Fonda
I wasn’t familiar with Hayden Pedigo prior to the release of In The Earth Again but the young man who ran for a seat in the City Council of his hometown of Amarillo in 2018 is certainly on my radar now. He is described as an avante-garde singer/songwriter and without having heard too much of his music, I’d have to guess that a lion’s share of the songs on In The Earth Again might’ve built around his arrangemets.
The album opens with an instrumental “Outside”- an atmospheric blend of guitar licks and strumming that sets the tone for the album and track 2, “Demon Time” which promises, “All the castles of the world will burn, but Someday all the demons will return” a terrifying lullaby that would lull and relax anyone who doesn’t speak English into a peaceful sleep.
Even though the cadence, lament and desperation of lead singer, Raygun Busch is instantly recognizable, Chat Pile fans looking for the Chat Pile sound that is so unique to them in this era will have to wait until track 3 “Never say die”. This song takes things up a notch for the first time on the album. Distortion, open hi hats riding and the pleading, existential screams that are somehow both optimistic and pessimistic, that we have come to love from Raygun Busch.
“Magic of the world” might be the most traditional song writing on the album but that in itself is a departure from the odd time signatures and dissonant chords that these nerds churn out like X-mas elves. The Hayden Pedigo influence might be most prominent on this track.
“Fission/Fusion” sounds like its name. It starts with a series of collisions and chain reactions to open the song to create electricity and power. Once the room has been lit by this energy, the atmospherics return with open notes that wrap samples in rhythm and melody for another dynamic instrumental.
These tracks should be played in order the first few times to properly partake of the journey. I found that out on my first pass at this. So when you get a chance and have the better part of an hour- light a candle, connect to the infinite source and let this record kidnap you.
I love it when bands produce art with reckless abandon and without regard for a fan base or what they might think or feel about it- my sense is Chat Pile was spawned with this sentiment in mind. That’s not to say that they aren’t proud of the work they put out to the public but it’s measured first but what they, the band think, being assured that the album sales and tours will come if this is always the case. What I’m describing isn’t the same thing as changing your sound to gain a foothold in popular music- it’s the polar opposite. But right from Chat Piles first EP, This Dungeon Earth it’s clear this band is nothing if not authentic.
You can see Chat Pile On Tour:
Paradise Rock Club, Boston MA.-Oct 31st and Nov 1st 2025
Hollywood Palladium, Los Angeles CA.- Nov 21st 2025
Guided By Voices- “Rich, Thick and Delicious” Rockathon Records and Tapes
In the world of music, there are many important Roberts. There is Robert Plant, Robert Fripp, Robert Smith, but perhaps most important of all, Robert Pollard. Leading Guided by Voices through a 40-plus album catalogue, the band’s latest release this Halloween comes in the form of Thick, Rich, and Delicious.
I turn to Guided By Voices for many reasons. When I want a sense of community, it’s perhaps the most engaged, closest-knit fanbase in the world. When I want to be inspired, I just look up to Robert Pollard’s resilience and unending creativity. When I want songs that are chill lo-fi but meaningful, give me “The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory” all day. When I want hooks, this new album is a good place to start before moving backward and listening to the rest of them.
related: Sacred Vibration- Guided By Voices at The Teragram Ballroom
The album has the perfect intro, “Babies and Gentlemen,” giving the listener the fuzzed-out lo-fi satire a GBV fan grows a keen ear for. It’s a simple taste of all the feels to come, a completely sonic prologue to our novel. The album’s single, “(You Can’t Go Back to) Oxford Talawanda,” gives you the sort of hook you hear on the wind simply growing up in America—a hook you’ve always known but don’t always hear in a song. The song reminds me of the vibes you might get from listening to The Replacements or watching reruns of Pete and Pete. The lyrics, which repeat the title, make you think of the Oxford Talawanda of your life, whether that’s an old flame’s town or a time in your life you’ve grown out of.
“Phantasmagoric Upstarts” drives home the art rock that pairs well with the modernist, almost pop art album cover. It’s a song that feels like it’s charging up to some big outburst of sound and poetry, but instead of arriving at some glorious, massive, bloated moment, it gives you more of the chill vibe you can run on forever.
“Lucy’s World” is a lyrical journey through Lucy’s mind, perfectly illustrating contradiction and confusion through rhythm that inspires self-reflection. This song has that perfect, balanced GBV chemistry at work, giving you a simple song that means something so complex. When you listen to the song, and you find that midpoint between enjoying the song easily but listening to it thoroughly, that’s where you’re guided to truth.
“Our Man Syracuse” is a great American cruiser of a track, contrasted with “Mother John,” perhaps my favorite song on the album, which is the kind of biting satire you might get from watching Monty Python—only in vinyl form.
“Mother John did a good thing today
Stuck his prick in his cereal
It’s a good thing it wasn’t his coffee
That’s okay, Mother John”
You can breeze through any Guided by Voices album and see the different facets of Robert Pollard’s mind and character—from his spirituality to his sense of humor. In many ways, he’s the musical American everyman, the deepest ordinary guy that anyone can connect with.
Moving forward, “Dance of the Picnic Ants” is another instrumental venture into rock city. “Xeno Urban” gets more rhythmic, bluesy, and moody than the rest of the album. “A Tribute to Beatle Bob” might be about Pollard himself, which would explain a lot if true. Although the song is about animals, the title could be a reference to the artist’s aspirations. Did Robert Pollard want Guided by Voices to be the American Beatles? The music certainly veers into that territory. GBV songs have that sort of indescribable magic and catchiness that Beatles songs have. Often irreverent and strange, you wonder why a song about something so ridiculous as “Octopus’s Garden” might be stuck in your head. The same thing goes for so much of the GBV catalogue. Weirdness makes a hook all the more infectious in the gospel of GBV.
“Replay” is a cool song, but “Siren” is a gorgeous one, making a mythic concept so rocking and relatable in typical GBV fashion. “The Lighthouse Resurrection” flexes Pollard’s poetic muscles—you can imagine taking the music out and hearing the lyrics as spoken word and being totally transported into someone’s internal world through them. “A. Glum Swoboda” is yet another chapter in the book of Thick, Rich, and Delicious, as it’s written out in the same style and propelled by the same thematic forces as the rest of the album. Perhaps this is the best way to absorb a GBV album—they’re like novels with characters, events, and plot devices illustrated in the lyrics that make for a larger, sweeping, postmodern story. “Ozark Ivanho” is the album’s last instrumental track, preceding the album’s farewell in the form of “Captain Kangaroo Won the War.” That song takes a different melodic and tonal direction than much of the album, going slower while keeping the fuzz. The song feels like an ode to the insanity of the modern world, where media juxtaposes children’s TV with images of war and chaos.
Thick, Rich, and Delicious is another triumphant example of why Guided by Voices is one of the most important musical efforts in the history of American creativity. Robert Pollard has taken the Beatles’ music through an American lens to much farther reaches than even the Beatles did—through the atomic age, the social media age, and now into the AI age—and within each of those eras, Pollard has found new ways to use poetry and tell new stories using that poetry that make for odd but poignant reflections of the times and places we find ourselves in.
Chat Pile Photos: Evan Moses
Guided By Voices Photo: Audrey Kemp
Words: Rob Shepyer/Danny Baraz
