Vundabar is an American

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band from

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. The band consists of Brandon Hagen (vocals, guitar), Drew McDonald (drums, synthesizer), and Zack Abramo (bass). Vundabar released their first full-length album in 2013 titled ''Antics''. In 2015, Vundabar released their second full-length album titled ''Gawk''. In 2017, Vundabar performed at

Boston Calling Music Festival Boston Calling Music Festival is a Boston-based music festival. The festival debuted in May 2013 and previously took place twice a year, May and September, at City Hall Plaza. The festival reportedly attracted 20,000–22,000 fans with its earlie ...

. In February 2018, Vundabar released their third full-length album titled ''Smell Smoke'' which was recorded by Keith Abrams at

Headroom Studios Headroom Studios is a music recording studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was originally started by Kyle Pulley and Joe Reinhart in 2008 in a room in a live/work artist warehouse collective, located in North Philadelphia, until it moved to ...

in Philadelphia. In March 2020, Vundabar released their fourth album ''Either Light''. Vundabar released their fifth full-length album ''Devil for the Fire'' on 15 April 2022. On September 16, 2022 they released their sixth full-length album ''Good Old,'' which consisted of 7 songs recorded in between the release of ''Gawk'' and ''Smell Smoke'' and 4 acoustic versions of previously released songs.

Band history

Vundabar formed when Brandon Hagen and Drew McDonald were in high school. Then the Bass player Zack Abramo joined the Band and in 2013 they released their debut full-length album titled ''Antics''. Allmusic says they adopted a more gritty tone on their second album ''Gawk'' which added more post-punk to the mix. In mid 2016, A new member of the band was present in an interview. The former bassist, Zack Abramo, appeared to have left the band. The new bass player was named Greyson Kirtland. He continued to appear in Vundabar videos and interviews until late 2018, when the band tweeted about their next show, in which Abramo would be with them once more. In 2018 their third studio-album was released titled ''Smell Smoke''. For their fourth album ''Either Light'' they changed their style and their way to write songs. Singer Brandon Hagen told in an interview with ''Allston Pudding'' that they wrote much of the songs on

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

instead of guitar. The album featured

jangle Jangle or jingle-jangle is a sound typically characterized by undistorted, treble-heavy electric guitars (particularly 12-strings) played in a droning chordal style (by strumming or arpeggiating). The sound is mainly associated with pop m ...

elements on a few songs and different instrumentation such as synths,

vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

. In 2021 their song "Alien Blues" went viral on

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

and has since been streamed over 300 million times on Spotify. In 2022 Vundabar released their fifth album titled ''Devil for the Fire'' and their sixth album, ''Good Old'', was released in September of the same year. On May 5, 2023, they released two new singles, "Digital Forest" and "Sugar Pill."

Musical style

Their musical style is described as

with elements of

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...

(''Gawk'' and later albums),

jangle pop Jangle pop is a subgenre of pop rock or college rock that emphasizes jangly guitars and 1960s-style pop melodies. The term originated from Bob Dylan's song " Mr. Tambourine Man", whose 1965 rendition by the Byrds became considered one of the g ...

(''Either Light'' and later albums) and surf rock. ''Allmusic'' describes their style as "jangly, fuzzed-out

math Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

- and surf-tinged indie rock shot through with plenty of post-punk spirit". As influences, the band named

Dick Dale Richard Anthony Monsour (May 4, 1937 – March 16, 2019), known professionally as Dick Dale, was an American rock guitarist. He was a pioneer of surf music, drawing on Middle Eastern music scale (music), scales and experimenting with reverb eff ...

, singer Brandon Hagen also named the

Osees Osees are an American rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1997, now based in Los Angeles, California. The band currently consists of primary songwriter and core member John Dwyer (vocals, guitar), Tim Hellman (bass), Dan Rincon (dr ...

, bassist Zack Abramo named electronic music such as

Burial Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

, and drummer Drew McDonald named

Tame Impala Tame Impala is the psychedelic music project of Australian multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker. In the recording studio, Parker writes, records, performs, and produces all of the project's music. As a touring act, Tame Impala consists of Parke ...

. On their first three albums, Vundabar mainly played their music on

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, bass and

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

. On their albums ''Either Light'' and ''Devil for the Fire,'' they also used synthesizers, electronic drum sounds and other instruments like piano or

Omnichord The Omnichord is an electronic musical instrument introduced in 1981 by the Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation. It typically features a touch plate known as "Sonic Strings", preset rhythms, auto-bass line functionality, and buttons for ma ...

Gawk Records

In an interview wit
Sound of Boston
McDonald explains that the band started a cassette label named Gawk Records in order to avoid financial pressures of signing to a label and to foster a community of artists.

Band members

Current *Brandon Hagen (vocals, guitar) *Zack Abramo (bass, background vocals) *Drew McDonald (drums, synthesizer) Past *Greyson Kirtland (bass, background vocals)

Discography

Studio albums

*''Antics'' (2013) *''Gawk'' (2015) *''Smell Smoke'' (2018) *''Either Light'' (2020) *''Devil for the Fire'' (2022)

Compilation albums

*''Good Old'' (2022)

EPs

*''Vundabar on Audiotree Live'' (2017)

Singles

* "Vundabar" (2014) *"Shuffle" (2017) *"Acetone" (2017) *"Devil for the Fire" (2021) *"Alien Blues (Redux)" (2022) *"Time" (2022) *"Shadow Boxing" (2022)

References

{{reflist Musical groups from Boston Musical groups established in 2012 2012 establishments in Massachusetts Rock music groups from Massachusetts