Since 2018, Trauma Ray have been establishing themselves as a force in the new wave of shoegaze. Today, the Fort Worth-based band is finally announcing their debut album Chameleon along with their signing to Dais. The colossal lead single “Bishop” is out now.
“I grew up in a pretty religious setting,” Uriel Avila explained. “Sin, guilt, and penance have always been themes that have stuck with me since a very young age. The fear of hell and fire was instilled in me when I was in my most malleable state and the lyrics to this song tie to that period of my life.”
Since 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."'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.
"Spectre" is a 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.Although the album is rich with subtleties, graceful lulls, and "breaths of air," the band’s three guitar attack is its defining force, a power flexed to its peak on "Bardo." Perez’s intentions were blunt: "I wanted to write a riff that was hard as fuck." 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").
"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. Feedback 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.
Chameleon is a masterpiece of five elements: craft, balance, melody, lyricism, flexing a fresh vision of loud-quiet-loud architectures and the vertigo depths of blasted harmoncs. From Slowdive, to Deftones, to Hum and beyond, trauma ray absorb and expand on their influences.
TOUR DATES:
08/21 – Dallas, TX @ Club DaDa
09/05 – San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
09/06 – Mcallen, TX @ El Cine
10/31 – Denton, TX @ Rubber Gloves
11/01 – Austin, TX @ Levitation
11/03 – Oklahoma City, OK @ Tower Theatre
11/06 – Kansas City, MO @ The Truman
11/08 – Indianapolis, IN @ Deluxe
11/09 – Grand Rapids, MI @ Elevation
11/10 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Roxian Theatre
11/12 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
11/14 – New Haven, CT @ Toad’s Place
11/29 – Los Angeles @ The Roxy (Record Release)
11/30 – San Diego @ Voodoo Room (Record Release)
