• News

• All

Aug 30, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Melissa McLaughlin

Grasser is a rising Asbury Park, New Jersey-based indie pop outfit from producer and singer Dana Yurcisin (Dana Why, Yawn Mower), lyricist and percussionist Biff Swenson (Yawn Mower), and multi-instrumentalist Nick Gianatiempo. Since their 2019 debut, the band have cultivated a fractured and idiosyncratic creative style, pulling together voice memos, warped guitar effects, restless rhythms, and playful instrumental textures into an expansive blend of influences.

The band first released their Later, Registration EP in 2019, followed by their 2021 full-length debut, Get Real, Quick! They have been largely silent in the years since before returning this year with a trio of new singles, “Vapid Dense”, “Bury Me Loose”, and “Don’t Make It Weird”, the first of which scored the band a feature on MTV. Those tracks are taken from the band’s new sophomore album, You’re Welcome For Having Us, out everywhere today.

You’re Welcome For Having Us brings out the band’s disparate creative instincts and heightens them, playing into their wild side to maximum effect. The record opens with “A Tad Tasteless,” building atop layered discordant strings before transitioning into a nervy scrawl of electronic rhythms, ascendant synth tones, and throat-shredding vocals. It’s one of many moments where the band launches themselves across the wide gaps between genres, such as the house and alt rock undertones to “Bury Me Loose” or the sleek pop melodies of “Don’t Make It Weird.” Other free-wheeling pivots include the nu-metal intro and maximalist arena pop of “Suboxone” or the winding art rock guitars on “P.O.S.Y.H.A.R.E.M.I.X.” Grasser constantly make it hard to predict their next move, but that is part of the album’s fun. Ultimately, each hairpin turn makes for another colorful detour and the band’s explosive genre fusions prove to be well worth exploring.

Stream You’re Welcome For Having Us below, out everywhere now.