Icelandic Post-Punk Band GRÓA Share New Single 'Cranberry'

Icelandic post-punk group GRÓA has returned with their new single “Cranberry” via the US label, FOUND. The track showcases the band’s distinctly distorted sound, blending a variety of vocal styles – from synchronized whispers and melodic chants to full-throated shouts – interwoven across snappy drums and buzzing guitars.

“The song is like a bull having smoke from its nose and ears,” the band says. “Instrumentally coming from a heavy dimension, like the instruments are angry or depressed, stuck in their own mess. It still has this tender and caring melody that Hrabba sings. You could say that it’s a love/care song.”

The Reykjavík-bred band, consisting of sisters Karólína Einars Maríudóttir, aka Karó (lead vocals, guitar, keys) and Hrafnhildur Einars Maríudóttir, aka Hrabba (drums, vocals), as well as Fríða Björg Pétursdóttir (bass, vocals), fearlessly blend aspects of post-punk, noise-rock, and art-pop into a dynamic sonic hash with boundless intention. “Our sound is our way to keep rock music interesting for ourselves, test every idea, keep our minds open, creative, unrestricted, our sound is a tiny little world with no rules,” the band says. GRÓA are looking forward to enchanting audiences once again, with new music on the way.

GRÓA discovered their combustible musicality through years of dreaming up songs while growing up together in Reykjavík and are best known for their revelatory live shows – a highly communal experience that has won acclaim from outlets like KEXP, The Line of Best Fit, Flaunt Magazine, Paste Magazine, Clash, and more. While their songs endlessly veer off into unexpected and sublimely jarring directions, all of GRÓA’s music reveals the deep sense of purpose behind their nonstop experimentation: a profound desire to shatter limitations, dismantle worn-out patterns and narrow ways of thinking, and uncover new possibilities for living without restraint in an all-too-rigid world. 
 
Earlier this year, GRÓA released reissues of their two acclaimed studio albums, the 2019 sophomore album Í Glimmerheimi and its 2021 follow up, What I like to do. The remastered albums are available on vinyl and CD for the first time ever, with a special bonus track available only on physical platforms. Purchase the albums here.
 
With their early live experience, including local gigs across makeshift venues, GRÓA released their self-titled debut in 2018 and first took the stage at the famed Iceland Airwaves festival in 2019, earning them rave reviews around the globe. Since then, they’ve opened for DJ sets by Pussy Riot and Björk, as well as live shows with artists like Wilco and Kælan Mikla. In their live shows, the band adds a heady element of free-flowing improvisation to their songs while providing abundant space for audience members to shed their own inhibitions, making them an act that you just can’t miss.

Photo Credit: Anna Maggý