Throughout the record, Schmitt shifts his identity as a narrator, flipping from his slightly nasal twang to a pointed use of Auto-Tune. The effect anonymizes Schmitt, stripping his voice of humanness so it contrasts with the organic layers of guitar, banjos, and cellos. This friction creates a detached coolness on some tracks—like the desperately devoted anti-love song “yr bitch”— and makes the genre-mashing on others sound even more unconventional, like the rollicking, synth-forward “Football Tour” and the punchy and grungy “WTF.” On the album’s title track, the vocals purr with digital texture as an off-kilter guitar melody spirals upwards, as if bubbling up from the bottom of a pool. It’s catchy and slightly off-putting, as Schmitt sings of diving for the titular ring, a quest without end that “doesn’t have the effect I hoped for.”
Grumpy’s knack for musical storytelling makes Unfindable Ring feel immersive, its songs chock-full of evocative wordplay and carefully produced so that every standout line is coupled with an accompanying sonic flourish. “The Whale,” a chamber-pop ballad duet between Schmitt and guitarist D.A. Crimson, is the album’s best display of lyrical surrealism (“Voldemort at the airport/Oversized bag with a dead horse/Odelay, oh delay” is just a taste). But halfway through the song, when an anxiety-inducing cello riff mimics a descent into a brackish ocean, the words snap into focus: “I know I’ll eat again/When my whale has his breakfast,” they sing. At the mercy of something unpredictable and bigger than themselves, they choose blind faith—a superpower, but one that those at the top of the food chain rarely develop.
With the exception of drummer Austin Arnold, all the members of Grumpy are trans, and this perspective isn’t so much a theme of the record as the air it breathes. “Twenty Five,” perhaps the album’s best song, is an alt-rock ballad sloshing over with seasick guitar fuzz, Schmitt’s Auto-Tune in full force. It describes hearing a partner wish she could go back in time and transition earlier. “You can still find me when you get to 2025,” he sings, reaching out across time and space to usher his beloved into a better adulthood. It’s a gorgeous sentiment, and one whose surplus of imagination, whose tendency to play and invent rather than conform to the world around them, touches every song on Unfindable Ring. Here, Grumpy hint at what a new Americana could sound like—one that finally takes stock of every misfit and their one, beautiful life.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
