We’re pumped to welcome Vundabar to Grimey’s on Tuesday, March 11th at 4:00 PM for an instore performance and album signing, just a few days after the band’s new album Surgery and Pleasure drops and right before they embark upon weeks of touring in the US and Europe. You can preorder your copy of their sixth full-length, their first for Loma Vista Recordings, in the record store or on our site here. All who preorder Surgery and Pleasure for local pickup will also receive a wristband for the band’s post performance signing. Wristbands are required for all 13+ (kids 12 & under don’t need a wristband if attending with a wristband-holding adult.)
Formed by Brandon Hagen (guitar, vocals) and Drew McDonald (drums), and later joined by Zack Abramo (bass), Vundabar have always been imbued with a fiercely independent spirit, their sound forged in mythical underground Brooklyn venues such as Silent Barn and Shea Stadium. Musically, they exist almost as a fever dream of many genres, melding arty post-punk, tangled math-rock, sun-dappled surf-guitar, shimmering jangle-pop and grunge scuzz into sharp, compact songs that have netted them a wide fan base and a reputation for a killer live show.
The band’s music has always progressed alongside its members, functioning as the band’s own coming-of-age tale. While the scrappiness of Vundabar’s earliest days gave way to a different gravity on 2021’s Devil For The Fire, that was only the beginning. Off the road and away from the studio during the pandemic years, Hagen had focused on tending to his father, going through the deeply “psychedelic” experience of parenting his own parent, teaching him to read and walk again. After his father’s death in 2023, shortly after the loss of a long-term relationship, Hagen could’ve been overwhelmed by all the loss. But instead, he found himself faced with the all-encompassing intensity of it all and chose surrender. This led him to new material that was an evolution by way of going home.
“Surgery And Pleasure is a more mature synthesis of all the stuff we’ve explored before,” he says of the album’s fusion of old-school Vundabar energy with a newfound muscularity and slickness. “In a way it feels like a return. It’s grownup Vundabar.”
Hagen’s answer for Vundabar’s new era ar rived through deconstruction. After breaking his arm on tour in France, Hagen found himself physically unable to play with the band or to strum a guitar. He wrote this new Vundabar material completely differently, holed up alone and building layered guitar parts by recording individual pieces until they formed a whole. He’d been broken himself, and in turn broke down what the band was, gaining a better understanding along the way.
We’re thrilled that even though Nashville isn’t an official stop on Vundabar’s upcoming tour that we have the pleasure of seeing them up-close-and-personal in the record shop and celebrating the release of Surgery and Pleasure with them. We hope you’ll be able to join us too for what is surely to be a fun and ruckus event!
Vundabar’s Surgery and Pleasure milky clear vinyl LP