01/13/2026
trauma raya.ray announces their new EP, Carnival, out February 20th - and drops new track “Hannibal” with video created by Elliot Truman, now streaming. Swirling chords, daydreams, distortions, and blasted harmonics. Word’s you cant erase. Is it easier to lie? Preorders up now : https://found.ee/traumaray
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, 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.
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.
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 loopable detour into darkness from a band growing more formidable by the mile.
