Grumpy has announced its debut album, Unfindable Ring, arriving October 23 on Bayonet Records. The Brooklyn project shared the news alongside a new single and video, “OBL.”
In less than two years on the label, Grumpy has become one of the more talked-about acts in New York’s resurgent scene, earning notice from The New York Times, NPR’s All Songs Considered, and a run of UK and US outlets alike. Wonderland, a British culture and style magazine, called Grumpy “an underdog to watch.” The New York Times described “Harmony,” a 2025 single, as “a hyperpop ballad that somehow stays winsome.” FADER pointed to songwriter Heaven Schmitt’s instinct for knowing “when to indulge their strangest impulses,” and Stereogum called that same songwriting “an ideal glue for Grumpy’s music.”
Grumpy began largely as Schmitt’s solo outlet, releasing two EPs on Bayonet, Wolfed and Piebald, along with a series of collaborative singles recorded with Sidney Gish, Precious Human, Claire Rousay, and Pink Must. Schmitt has also spent the past stretch as a favored collaborator of country artist Zach Bryan, contributing harmonies to his album With Heaven On Top and touring with his live band, including UK arenas, this spring.
A Solo Project Becomes a Band
Unfindable Ring marks a structural shift. Where Grumpy has often been presented as a solo act, the album credits Schmitt alongside five other members, Anya Good, Ellie Long (also of Kid Lake), Austin Arnold, Diego Clare (also known as D.A. Crimson), and Lane Rodgers, each contributing across engineering, recording, mixing, artwork, production, and video. It’s a fully collaborative effort, with the band members trading roles across every stage of the process rather than working around a single frontperson.
That range shows up in the record’s sound. Across Unfindable Ring, Grumpy moves between synth textures, honkytonk strings, jazz percussion, shoegaze distortion, and heavily processed vocals, pulling from country, pop, and ambient reference points without settling into one lane. It’s a wide range for a band this early into a debut full-length, and one that seems to follow directly from the album’s collaborative production, six people each pulling the material somewhere different.
Joy and Danger on the Road
The album is introduced by “OBL,” a song Schmitt has described as chronicling the more difficult side of the band’s touring life. Grumpy’s lineup is almost entirely trans, and the song sits that reality alongside the touring party’s day-to-day. “Touring across the country as a band full of trans people, we often worry about how we will be received, and sometimes wonder if we will be safe,” Schmitt said of the track. “But what we usually find is love. We protect each other and laugh and live our normal lives.”
The video continues a pattern in the group’s own run of music videos: it’s the latest clip where Schmitt plays an unsettling, watchful figure trailing the other band members, following earlier videos for “Crush,” “Rice,” and “Bird Parts.” Schmitt said the choice wasn’t originally deliberate, but that it clicked into place with “OBL”: “We often wonder in real life, is the guy at the gas station staring because we’re trans? Is that disgust on his face? Confusion? We don’t usually get to know the answer.”
It’s a plainer, more direct piece of songwriting than the surrounding press attention might suggest, less concerned with the band’s rising profile than with what it actually feels like to tour under those conditions, and it earns the attention already coming Grumpy’s way for reasons beyond the usual “band to watch” framing.
Unfindable Ring runs thirteen tracks, including a feature from D.A. Crimson, and is out October 23 through Bayonet Records. It’s available for preorder now.
Learn More
Bandcamp: https://grumpyismyleastfavoriteband.bandcamp.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grumpyismyleastfavoriteband/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@grumpyismyleastfavband
Bayonet Records: https://bayonet.nyc/unfindablering
