Haraball Hypno

Kongsberg, Norway 5-piece Haraball strike back with their third album on Fysisk Format: Hypno! Whilst the first two albums have been praised by the underground punk press for their blitzing fast and catchy hardcore, the listeners are in for something slightly different this time: “It took a lot of time to write HYPNO. We started off writing a follow up to Half Tux, but got tired of it half-way through and ended up removing everything that sounded like hardcore. The songs are more experimental, longer, noisier and Trond now has a synth,” is singer Jon Eivind’s summary. He continues, “but even with da capos, light tones and harmonized sing-alongs, we still sound ugly and asocial. We’re always trying to dumb the music down, making it as tribal and hard as possible. This time around, it just took a lot of dumbing.” Jon Eivind updates us on the thematic side too: “Lyrically, “the ‘ball” has recieved a few blows, and moved away from existentialism towards science fiction and fantasy. More Twilight Zone than Camus! The title track is about the fear of waking up in the morning transformed into a pig. That feeling when you stand in front of the mirror, hooves to your chin, squealing in panic. It’s something everyone can relate to. White Chickens is about being invisible. Paranoia Eggs is about trying to explain to a hungry rat that your eyes are not eggs. Hog Peni, on the other hand, despite its pretentious title, is more down to earth: A Song about a band washing the audience’s feet. HYPNO is without a doubt our strongest work, and the thought of having to surpass it is dreadful. These are dangerous tracks and we can’t really recommend them to anyone.” HYPNO is recorded and mixed by Haraball-guitarist Trond Mjøen and mastered by Chris Sansom. The artwork is, like all previous Haraball covers, drawn by Esra Røise.