There’s something oddly fitting about a band whose name literally translates to the Latin word for “mediocre” delivering one of the more distinctive debut announcements of the year. New York City duo halfway up a jagged hill — Devin Gilbert and Jeb Polstein — have officially signed to Brooklyn indie label Vinegar Hill Sound Records (VHS Records) and announced their debut LP, HUAJH, arriving September 10, 2026. Pre-orders are open now, and the opening track “Obscure Sorrows” premieres today as the first taste of what’s to come.

If you’ve caught the band around New York’s rock circuit this year, you already know the drill: minimalist setup, maximalist payoff. Gilbert’s downtuned guitar carries the weight — chugs, harmonics, melodic lines that ring out into the dark — while Polstein’s drums swing between fast toms, blast beats, and breathing room. The result sits somewhere between metal, emo, and slowcore without fully committing to any of them, drawing comparisons to Pile, Liturgy, Envy, The World Is a Beautiful Place, Hella, and (yes, really) Debussy.

“Obscure Sorrows” is a gnarled, contemplative entry point into that world. The track takes its name and thematic cues from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig, a book of invented words for feelings the English language has yet to name. “In the screamed section, the lyrics reference the Nine of Swords, the tarot card that represents fear, pain, and sadness,” Gilbert and Polstein explain. “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.” As debut singles go, it’s an unusually honest thesis statement: here’s the pain, here’s the release, here’s the door.

Stream “Obscure Sorrows” here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=halfway+up+a+jagged+hill+obscure+sorrows

The origin story is worth lingering on. Gilbert and Polstein have been playing together since middle school jazz band, weaving through projects including post-hardcore outfit Primate House, shoegaze-leaning Chris Sunshine, Polstein’s Seattle-based free jazz/doom math duo Macaw, and Gilbert’s experimental pop project Kid Dusty. HUAJH — the band and the album — came together in 2024, when both found themselves back in New York and hungry to explore the heavier corners of their musical vocabulary. One January night walking in the woods looking for owls, they stumbled onto what they can only describe as a witch hut: a pile of sticks framing a void that swallowed the moonlight. They found no owls. They did, however, find their album art, later rendered by visual artist Nick Corbo of Spirit Was.

The signing itself unfolded almost by accident. The duo brought the record to Reed Black at Vinegar Hill Sound after previously working with him on Fish Hunt’s 2024 album Self-Taught. Midway through mixing, Black offered them a home on his label, where they now join Fish Hunt, People I Love, and Dan English. VHS Records, founded in 2024 and born out of the 1,200-square-foot hybrid analog-digital studio between DUMBO and the Navy Yard, operates on a Stax-inspired ethos of small, deliberate curation over scale. Black, who has spent over a decade tracking Solange, Karen O, Wet, and Depeche Mode, launched the label chasing intimacy rather than reach.

That intimacy suits HUAJH. Gilbert, who works as a mental health clinician by day, threads themes of pain and recovery through the tracklist. “Silver Sword” narrates a journey from self-harm toward love. Closer “Whale Falls” reframes decay as ecological generosity — a falling whale carcass nourishing an ecosystem below. Polstein, a landscape architect, treats the drums like terrain, building spaces for the songs to move through. It’s a heavy record that refuses to wallow.

HUAJH tracklist:
1. Obscure Sorrows
2. Liar
3. Bleakwood
4. Silver Sword
5. Mourning Glory
6. Prince with a Thousand Enemies
7. Heaven
8. Whale Falls

HUAJH arrives September 10, 2026 via VHS Records. Pre-order the album, keep an eye on the band’s Instagram (@halfwayupajaggedhill) for upcoming NYC shows, and press play on “Obscure Sorrows” — preferably somewhere with hollow trees.