TRAUMA RAY
CARNIVAL (BLACK VINYL) - LP

UPC: 683950558717
Label: DAIS
Format: LP
Release Date: February 20, 2026
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Carnival, 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 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. "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. 

TRACK LIST:

1. carousel
2. Hannibal
3. Méliès
4. Funhouse
5. Clown