Brooklyn-based indie duo Halfway Up a Jagged Hill (HUAJH) — longtime friends Devin Gilbert and Jeb Holstein — were walking in the woods one January night, looking for owls, when they can came across what could only have been described as a witch hut. Stacked between bare trees, the pile of sticks framed a void that swallowed any moonlight bouncing off the frozen ground, What mysterious crouched instead? The two friends found no owls that night. But as Halfway Up a Jagged Hill, Gilbert and Holstein continue to look.
Gilbert and Polstein have been writing and performing together for most of their lives, forging a deep and uncanny musical bond that stretches back to middle school jazz band. Since then, the pair have been involved in a number of different projects both together and separately including the post-hardcore band Primate House, the shoegaze-tinged Chris Sunshine, as well as Polstein’s Seattle-based free jazz/math duo Macaw and Gilbert’s experimental pop solo project Kid Dusty. But HUAJH can trace its origins back to 2024 when the two longtime friends found themselves both living gin New York for the first time in years, and hungry to explore the heavier side of their musical backgrounds.
After roughly a year of practicing and writing, the duo approached Vinegar Hill Sound‘s Reed Black to record an album. The longtime friends were very familiar with Black and his work: They worked with Black, recording a song on Fish Hunt’s 2024 effort Self-Taught, and the experience led them to believe that Black would the right person to bring their vision to life. But they didn’t know that halfway through the album’s mixing process that Black would sign them to Vinegar Hill Sound Records, who will be releasing the duo’s full-length debut, HUAJH on September 10, 2026.
HUAJH features a maximalist sound from a minimalist set up: Gilbert’s downtuned guitar carries weight, with distorted chugging leavened by ringing harmonies and melodic lines as Polstein’s drums simultaneously shoulder the guitar lines and dance around them. Gilbert’s vocal alternates between sining and screaming lyrics that take listeners on a journey from hopelessness to regeneration while drawing on natural imagery, daily observations and fantastical themes. The result is an album that bludgeons but also consoles while bringing Pile, Liturgy, The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, Hella and Debussy to mind, while weaving them into something distinct.
Gilbert works as a mental health clinician during the day. And naturally themes of pain and recovery punctuate the album’s material. Polstein, on the other hand, is a landscape architect. While being immersed in nature and natural imagery, he thinks of music spatially — and for him, the drums are a way to create landscapes to move through musically.
HUAJH‘s first single “Obscure Sorrows” is a bruising 90s alt rock-inspired tune that brings back nostalgic memories of Dinosaur Jr. and In Utereo-era Nirvana while anchored in a heart-wrenching despair and anguish that feels — well, completely of our time and yet somehow deeply timeless.
“Obscure Sorrows’ is inspired by The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig, which is a book of made-up words to describe human feelings and experiences that there are no real words for in the English language,” the duo explain. “In the screamed section, the lyrics reference the Nine of Swords, the tarot card that represents fear, pain, and sadness. The song is ultimately about releasing your despair and not being held captive by it. This was the first song we wrote and our first journey into blast beats.”