Trauma Ray
Among the current wave of shoegaze revivalists, Fort Worth's Trauma Ray rank as high as any at capturing its complexity, intensity, and expressive devastation. Since first making waves with a self-titled EP in 2018, the core songwriting duo of Uriel Avila and Jonathan Perez have expanded and refined the project's vision and craft, culminating in their 12-track Dais debut, Chameleon. Rounded out by bassist Darren Baun, drummer Nicholas Bobotas, and guitarist Coleman Pruitt, the album both synthesizes and transcends its influences, a stormy fusion of downer hooks, apocalyptic beauty, and bulldozer riffs.
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" dance above a stop-start assault of precision distortion, eventually expanding into a lush, heavy, sorrowful end coda. As Perez puts it, "This song shows what the band can do."
"Spectre" began as a one-off rehearsal demo - written quickly, played once, then never again. While building the track list for Chameleon, Bobotas re-discovered their practice recording in his archive of voice memos. A mysterious, introspective dirge, they envisioned it as a "mellow, slowcore, Duster thing," all feeling and heavy fuzz chords with no lead guitar. Lyrically, Avila wrote it "to be like a hymnal," from the perspective of someone who won't let you go - an ex, a ghost, a shadow self.
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