“He even put a +100dB switch on it. It blew out the speakers in the practice room and we’ve never used it again”: HAAL are turning UK post-hardcore upside-down with anti-breakdowns, eight-minute songs and amp-exploding fuzz pedals

Formed by two schoolmates from a picturesque but lifeless town in Devon, UK, HAAL came to life in Bristol while the pair studied at university, and they blame the city for accentuating their weirdness.

Guitarist/vocalist Alfie Hay’s dad has since called their music “menacing” and his friend says she always “feels weird” after their shows. But it didn’t use to be like that. 

“We found Bristol to be open to experimental music,” Alfie says. “It’s a comfortable environment to get weird. The heavier we got, the less we cared about how it might be perceived. We’ll play eight-minute songs and people won’t walk out to go for a cig.”

Their debut EP, Back To Shilmarine, ices gloomy, post-hardcore soundscapes with frenetic, industrial hardcore and noisy-as-hell finales. They operate on a shoestring budget and it works wonders for them. It was only recently that Alfie bought his first proper guitar, having previously abused his drummer’s Fender Jaguar. 

He’s opted for a Chapman ML3 Modern – “I wanted a guitar that looked like a Tele but didn’t sound like one” – which he puts through pedals built for him by bassist and childhood friend, Joe Collins. It’s saved him a fortune.

He explains: “I’d be looking at buying a pedal and Joe would go, ‘I can build you one instead.’ He built a harmonic EQ which we call the Joey Special. It makes any amp sound expensive. We don’t take amps to gigs – we just borrow whatever’s there, so that pedal is genuinely brilliant.

“Joe also made a fuzz which has about 20 switches on it – it’s mad! It’s all the different types of fuzz tones I like in one pedal. He even put a +100dB switch on it. It blew out the speakers in the practice room and we’ve never used it again.” 

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Alfie’s pedalboard is completed by a Boss tuner – “those are the hardest to mark” – a DD-8 Digital Delay for “warpy, shimmer-verbs”, EarthQuaker Devices’ Arpanoid polyphonic pitch arpeggiator, and two more Collins copies, of an MXR Micro Amp and a Fulltone Hot Cakes respectively.

For the rest of their weird effects, the band relies on the “pedalboard within himself” synth player, Ethan Jones. Alfie, meanwhile, also embraces the “beautiful, twinkling” sound of harmonics.

“They feel like the antithesis of our breakdowns,” he says, “and when I’m playing in different tunings the harmonics will move too, revealing secret notes.”

• Back to Shilmarine is out now via Babka.