{"title":"Trauma Ray","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"trauma-ray-chameleon-colored-vinyl","title":"Trauma Ray - Chameleon [Colored Vinyl]","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"col-md-12 col-sm-12 col-xs-12\" id=\"aec-product-description\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"aec-desc-review collapse\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSince first bonding over Slowdive at a Texas karaoke bar six years ago, musicians Uriel Avila and Jonathan Perez have grown Trauma Ray into Fort Worth's foremost flag bearer of crushing shoegaze. A five-piece rounded out by bassist Darren Baun, drummer Nicholas Bobotas, and guitarist Coleman Pruitt, the band's debut album, 'Chameleon', captures their evolving sound at an apex of majestic devastation. A fusion of downer hooks, gauzy melancholia, and bulldozer riffs, the album heaves and crashes across 50 minutes of stacked amplifier alchemy. Lyrically the songs trace similarly lofty and brooding terrain; Avila says \"The theme is death. And a chameleon, like death, can shape-shift in and out our lives in different forms.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n'Chameleon' opens with \"Ember,\" dreamy and distant, alternately anthemic and apocalyptic, defeated and deafening. Lead single \"Bishop\" perfectly encapsulates Trauma Ray's depth and dimension, ripping out of the gate with \"the biggest, baddest, saddest wall of sound.\" Lyrics about being burnt at the stake and \"tossed in the flame\" float above a stop-start assault of precision distortion, eventually expanding into a lush, heavy, sorrowful end coda. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Spectre\" is\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ea mysterious, introspective dirge, envisioned as a \"mellow, slowcore, Duster-thing,\" all feeling and heavy fuzz chords (with no lead guitar). Avila wrote it, \"to be a hymnal\" from the perspective of someone who won't let go - a ghost, an ex, a shadow self.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eAlthough the album is rich with subtleties, graceful lulls, and \"breaths of air,\" the band's three guitar attack is it's defining force, a power flexed to it's peak on \"Bardo.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerez's intentions were blunt: \"I wanted to write a riff that was hard as f***.\" The result is alternately mean and eerie, veering between noisy one string bends and surging headbang, mapping a middle ground between Unwound and early-Deftones. One of Trauma Ray's greatest gifts is their ability to make doomy, sledgehammer heaviness sound like an earworm, without production tricks or gimmicks: \"Riff, verse, chorus, three guitar parts - that's all you need.\" This quality is particularly apparent on the title track, a churning slab of amplifier worship, swirling chords, and heavenly, defeated vocals about not belonging, shape-shifting, and death (\"A twisted face \/ Void of attention \/ An empty space \/ In your reflection\").\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\"U.S.D.D.O.S\" closes the album, swaying across seven minutes of grey skied guitar and haunted voice, subtly thickening as it deepens. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeedback and shrapnel gradually begin raining down, like a satellite disintegrating in the atmosphere. Titled as an acronym after a poem by Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño that loosely translates to \"a dream within a dream,\" the melody softens, smears, and then disappears, slowly swallowed by the gravity of eternal descent. 'Chameleon' is a masterpiece of craft, balance, melody, lyricism, and gravity, flexing a fresh vision of loud-quiet-loud architectures and the vertigo depths of blasted harmonics. From Slowdive to Nothing, to Hum and beyond, the band absorb and expand on their influences into a rare and dedicated alchemy. Trauma Ray's cinematic tempest is a gathering storm only just taking flight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFormat \/ \u003cb\u003eLP\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eReleased \/ \u003cstrong\u003e10\/25\/2024\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCatalogue \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDAIS-233C1\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eBarcode \/ \u003cstrong\u003e683950557994\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eArtist \/ \u003cstrong\u003eTrauma Ray\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eLabel \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDais\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eGenre \/ \u003cstrong\u003ePop \/ Rock\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secretly Canadian","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41763998236733,"sku":"POP-T-683950557994","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1487\/4550\/files\/4369265-3232909.jpg?v=1729626943"},{"product_id":"trauma-ray-chameleon","title":"Trauma Ray - Chameleon","description":"\u003cdiv id=\"aec-product-description\" class=\"col-md-12 col-sm-12 col-xs-12\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"aec-desc-review collapse\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSince first bonding over Slowdive at a Texas karaoke bar six years ago, musicians Uriel Avila and Jonathan Perez have grown Trauma Ray into Fort Worth's foremost flag bearer of crushing shoegaze. A five-piece rounded out by bassist Darren Baun, drummer Nicholas Bobotas, and guitarist Coleman Pruitt, the band's debut album, 'Chameleon', captures their evolving sound at an apex of majestic devastation. A fusion of downer hooks, gauzy melancholia, and bulldozer riffs, the album heaves and crashes across 50 minutes of stacked amplifier alchemy. Lyrically the songs trace similarly lofty and brooding terrain; Avila says \"The theme is death. And a chameleon, like death, can shape-shift in and out our lives in different forms.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n'Chameleon' opens with \"Ember,\" dreamy and distant, alternately anthemic and apocalyptic, defeated and deafening. Lead single \"Bishop\" perfectly encapsulates Trauma Ray's depth and dimension, ripping out of the gate with \"the biggest, baddest, saddest wall of sound.\" Lyrics about being burnt at the stake and \"tossed in the flame\" float above a stop-start assault of precision distortion, eventually expanding into a lush, heavy, sorrowful end coda. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Spectre\" is\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ea mysterious, introspective dirge, envisioned as a \"mellow, slowcore, Duster-thing,\" all feeling and heavy fuzz chords (with no lead guitar). Avila wrote it, \"to be a hymnal\" from the perspective of someone who won't let go - a ghost, an ex, a shadow self.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eAlthough the album is rich with subtleties, graceful lulls, and \"breaths of air,\" the band's three guitar attack is it's defining force, a power flexed to it's peak on \"Bardo.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerez's intentions were blunt: \"I wanted to write a riff that was hard as f***.\" The result is alternately mean and eerie, veering between noisy one string bends and surging headbang, mapping a middle ground between Unwound and early-Deftones. One of Trauma Ray's greatest gifts is their ability to make doomy, sledgehammer heaviness sound like an earworm, without production tricks or gimmicks: \"Riff, verse, chorus, three guitar parts - that's all you need.\" This quality is particularly apparent on the title track, a churning slab of amplifier worship, swirling chords, and heavenly, defeated vocals about not belonging, shape-shifting, and death (\"A twisted face \/ Void of attention \/ An empty space \/ In your reflection\").\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\"U.S.D.D.O.S\" closes the album, swaying across seven minutes of grey skied guitar and haunted voice, subtly thickening as it deepens. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeedback and shrapnel gradually begin raining down, like a satellite disintegrating in the atmosphere. Titled as an acronym after a poem by Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño that loosely translates to \"a dream within a dream,\" the melody softens, smears, and then disappears, slowly swallowed by the gravity of eternal descent. 'Chameleon' is a masterpiece of craft, balance, melody, lyricism, and gravity, flexing a fresh vision of loud-quiet-loud architectures and the vertigo depths of blasted harmonics. From Slowdive to Nothing, to Hum and beyond, the band absorb and expand on their influences into a rare and dedicated alchemy. Trauma Ray's cinematic tempest is a gathering storm only just taking flight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFormat \/ \u003cb\u003eLP\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eReleased \/ \u003cstrong\u003e10\/25\/2024\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCatalogue \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDAIS-233\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eBarcode \/ \u003cstrong\u003e683950557970\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eArtist \/ \u003cstrong\u003eTrauma Ray\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eLabel \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDais\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eGenre \/ \u003cstrong\u003ePop \/ Rock\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secretly Canadian","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41764000858173,"sku":"POP-T-683950557970","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1487\/4550\/files\/4369265-3232909.jpg?v=1729626943"},{"product_id":"trauma-ray-carnival-red-vinyl","title":"Trauma Ray - Carnival [Red Vinyl]","description":"\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCarnival, the new EP from Trauma Ray, finds the Fort Worth band capturing some of their strongest, most intense, and exploratory work within the boundaries of a whirlwind year. The breakout success of Chameleon, their 2024 debut on Dais Records, further established Trauma Ray amidst the current wave of shoegaze revivalists, yet increasingly agile, able to weave between scenes, touring throughout 2025 with the likes of Deafheaven, Loathe, and Touché Amoré. A confluence of blitzing riffs and stark beauty, their sound continues to evolve, nodding to loud-quiet-loud greats across metal, grunge, and shoegaze from Slowdive to Smashing Pumpkins. Carnival delves into moodier, more cerebral material, like holding their past excursions against a funhouse mirror. There's a distinct sense of unease in these songs, built as a band in a fleeting window of time, proving they work best under pressure and when pulling from the darkest corners of their subconscious. \"When Chameleon came out, we just never stopped touring. We're driving ourselves, so it's not like we have some situation where we can sit in a van and write,\" explains Jonathan Perez, who moved to San Diego after returning from recent Deafheaven dates, adding to the challenge of getting the band all in one room. They used a break in the summer 2025 schedule to regroup in Texas for a few days, recording a flurry of tracks, then sent them to Corey Coffman for mixing and mastering. \"At first I thought this was gonna be really bad and rushed, and now I feel like it might be my favorite thing we've ever done,\" Perez says. \"It's the most collaborative we've been, where everyone was both hands-on and hands-off,\" adds Uriel Avila. \"You can really hear each person's influences in almost every song in a very unique, non-biting way.\" Avila and Perez, the band's core songwriting duo to date, welcomed more contributions from others, notably an eerier strain of rhythmic and textural ideas from guitarist Coleman Pruitt. The direction coincided with a growing sense of collective dread and anxiety, and a striking photo set of a deserted amusement park near Brighton, England, taken on tour by drummer Nicholas Bobotas and now featured as the artwork. \"It really looks like we specifically chose this theme and like had this whole preconceived idea, but it truly appeared out of like thin air,\" says Perez. The wordless \"Carousel\" ushers in the EP's unsettling atmosphere with blasts of static and downcast strums giving way to \"Hannibal\", an anthemic track packed with power riffs and raw emotion. The band has hit this kind of sheer power before, from 2018's \"Solstice\" to Chameleon's title track, while \"Hannibal\" contorts with a tinge of unprecedented evil, slithery, \"Stone Temple-y, Alice in Chains-y,\" Avila quips. Lyrically, he taps into teenage angst, the feeling of being dissected and rejected. \"Méliès\", named after the French illusionist and filmmaker Georges Méliès, cuts between heavy, sludgy chords and a skyward chorus, \"from something scary to like a dream state,\" says Avila, who channels the namesake's surreal abstraction. His lines detail \"being stuck in your head and just making up realities that probably aren't the real thing going on, when you don't want to face the truth.\" \"Funhouse\" dips into doom metal, with sparse guitar work and possibly the band's slowest ever BPM, as self-proclaimed Sleep-heads. Lyrics play with shifting perspectives, culminating in the call-and-response outro (\"take my hand \/ this is not your wonderland\") that conjures two forces, or frames of mind, at odds with one another.\u003c\/span\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFormat \/ \u003cb\u003eLP\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eReleased \/ \u003cb\u003e02\/20\/2026\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCatalogue \/ \u003cb\u003eDAIS-247C1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBarcode \/ \u003cb\u003e683950558700\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eArtist \/ \u003cb\u003eTrauma Ray\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLabel \/ \u003cb\u003eDais\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGenre \/ \u003cb\u003ePop \/ Rock\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secretly Canadian","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42994018091069,"sku":"POP-T-683950558700","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1487\/4550\/files\/4479279-3500472.jpg?v=1771166742"},{"product_id":"trauma-ray-carnival","title":"Trauma Ray - Carnival","description":"\u003cp\u003eCarnival finds the Fort Worth's trauma ray capturing some of their strongest, most intense, and exploratory work within the boundaries of a whirlwind year. The breakout success of Chameleon, their 2024 debut on Dais Records, further established the band amidst the current wave of shoegaze revivalists, yet increasingly agile, able to weave between scenes, touring throughout 2025 with the likes of Deafheaven, Loathe, and Touche ́ Amore.́ A confluence of blitzing riffs and stark beauty, their sound continues to evolve, nodding to loud-quiet-loud greats across metal, grunge, and shoegaze from Slowdive to Smashing Pumpkins.   Carnival delves into moodier, more cerebral material, like holding their past excursions against a funhouse mirror. There's a distinct sense of unease in these songs, built as a band in a fleeting window of time, proving they work best under pressure and when pulling from the darkest corners of their subconscious.   The wordless \"Carousel\" ushers in the EP's unsettling atmosphere with blasts of static and downcast strums giving way to \"Hannibal\", an anthemic track packed with power riffs and raw emotion. The band has hit this kind of sheer power before, from 2018's \"Solstice\" to Chameleon's title track, while \"Hannibal\" contorts with a tinge of unprecedented evil, slithery, \"Stone Temple-y, Alice in Chains-y,\" Avila quips. Lyrically, he taps into teenage angst, the feeling of being dissected and rejected.   \"Méliès\", named after the French illusionist and filmmaker cuts between heavy, sludgy chords and a skyward chorus, \"from something scary to like a dream state,\" says Avila, who channels the namesake's surreal abstraction. His lines detail, \"being stuck in your head and just making up realities that probably aren't the real thing going on, when you don't want to face the truth.\" \"Funhouse\" dips into doom metal, with sparse guitar work and possibly the band's slowest ever BPM, as self-proclaimed Sleep-heads. Lyrics play with shifting perspectives, culminating in the call-and-response outro (\"take my hand \/ this is not your wonderland\") that conjures two forces, or frames of mind, at odds with one another.   In contrast, the final track \"Clown\" jolts, flashes, and pummels, like the listener has come out the other end of a house of horrors, now fully immersed in the jarring, disorienting lights of the carnival. Personified by a knotty, synthy lead guitar squal — \"the lead tone is something I'm super proud of, we've never had something like that in a trauma ray song,\" per Perez — \"Clown\" reminds them of Robin Williams, an archetype of tragic happiness, how the people trying the hardest to make others laugh may privately be the saddest. Sonically, the band is quick to credit the influence of “Undone” and “Stuck on You” by '90s cult favorite Failure, alongside the omnipresent Loveless, which gets to the greatness of trauma ray: five musicians absorbing, synthesizing, and expanding on what they love. Carnival offers a brief and highly loop-able detour into darkness from a band growing more formidable by the mile.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFormat \/ \u003cb\u003eLP\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eReleased \/ \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e \u003cb\u003e0\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e2\/20\/2026\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCatalogue \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDAIS-247LP\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBarcode \/ \u003cstrong\u003e683950558717\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eArtist \/ \u003cstrong\u003eTrauma Ray \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLabel \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDais Records\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGenre \/ \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e \u003cb\u003ePop \/ Rock\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secretly Canadian","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42994241044541,"sku":"POP-T-683950558717","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1487\/4550\/files\/DAIS247.jpg?v=1771192219"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.plaidroomrecords.com\/collections\/artist-trauma-ray.oembed","provider":"Plaid Room Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}