While the record’s title comes from the human ability to adapt in the wake of traumatic events, Chameleon also feels aptly titled for Texan shoegazers Trauma Ray’s clever ability to change their music’s appearance while maintaining the same DNA. The band’s debut album clearly takes notes from Hum, Sonic Youth, Sunny Day Real Estate, Unwound, Slowdive, Duster, and a list of other ’90s-era alt-rock bands they don’t list by name in their track-by-track breakdown of the new record, while landing somewhere in between peers like Cloakroom’s penchant for slowcore-infused shoegaze and Narrow Head’s punkier stylings. Meanwhile, their contribution to the split EP they released with fellow gloomgazers Downward last year leaned into the overwhelming melancholy of Pedro the Lion’s Control era.
Yet beyond that, what guitarists Jon Perez and Uri Avila bring to the table in terms of influences when discussing the group’s (rounded out by drummer Nicholas Bobotas, bassist Darren Baun, and newly added third guitarist Coleman Pruitt) new album might be a little more surprising. From the noisy strings and warbling vocals of “Bardo” taking cues from Korn to the upbeat pop-punk of “Torn” finding My Chemical Romance as its muse, Chameleon seems to achieve its layered feel by stacking ideas pulled from a wider variety of sources than many of their fellow shoegaze revivalists might think to access. Even literary names like Tolkien and Bolaño get name dropped in the duo’s walkthrough of the record as figures who helped them achieve “the biggest, baddest, saddest wall of sound possible.”
With the record arriving today via Dais, stream along and find Perez and Avila’s words below.
1. “Ember”
Jon Perez: “Ember” is about remembrance after death. It’s a song of mourning. Putting ourselves or those important to us that are gone in our own special place in our minds and hearts that we keep sacred. Lyrically, it’s a pretty straightforward song. Instrumentally, we wanted to build a world where Sunny Day Real Estate and Hum wrote a song together. The vocal melody, picking pattern, and bass line tied to that era of emo with the rhythmic qualities of more straightforward ’90s alternative rock.
2. “Torn”
Uri Avila: “Torn” was actually supposed to be on our second EP that was recorded by Elliott Frazier of Ringo Deathstarr, but we ran out of time trying to figure out the vocals and lyrics and left it behind. During the recording process for Chameleon we dug it back up and reworked some things until it finally found its place. The lead was something we never had before the beauty of having a third guitarist. I wanted this to feel like post-punk if it was written by My Chemical Romance. This is the fastest-paced song on the record other than “Bishop” and dips back to our older style of writing. Lyrically, it’s about wanting to take someone’s pain away, or taking on their burden to lessen the weight of it all. I think that kind of empathy is lost on a lot of people. Like Sam carrying Frodo on the mountain at the end of Lord of the Rings.
3. “Chameleon”
Uri: This is our favorite song off the record. It’s a perfect mesh of our guitar styles and music taste. Jon’s need for lush and melodic versus my want for aggressive and rhythmic. The initial riff was something I played and reworked a ton of times before I found the right feeling of intensity in the groove, and the chorus easily followed suit. The push-and-pull between the chorus and the second introduced riff near the end is the best example of what we constantly struggle with in our writing process. Hearing the dance between the two come to life was a great feeling in the studio. This song is written from the perspective of death as it taunts you for trying to hide from it. The theme of the record revolves around death and the change that comes with it all, so it was fitting for this to be the title track.
4. “Bardo”
Jon: “Bardo” was one of the very last songs written on the LP—[we were] literally writing it as we were recording. It was an idea I had in mind for a while of, “What if Sonic Youth or Unwound wrote a Korn song?” I think you can hear that from the noisy single string bends to the warbling lead on the verses, kinda echoing back to “Freak on a Leash” or “Falling Away From Me.” “Bardo” is the in-between—whether that’s life or death, or a purgatory. It’s about being stuck in between one phase and the next. When you can feel the past fading and yet you can't quite see the path to the future, either.
5. “Bishop”
Uri: The first riff Coleman brought to the band when we asked him to join over 2020’s quarantine period. It was driving and not a usual rhythm we’d messed around with, so Nick had a lot of fun with this track. Jon immediately cooked the lead to this one. I remember him saying he “wanted it to sound like a warning siren,” so the aspect of dread was already there from the get go. The ending was something I’d held onto from another old idea, and it kinda just clicked one day to marry the two together. I wanted it to feel like the biggest, baddest, saddest wall of sound possible. Darren really nailed it with the tone for that section. Definitely one of our most collaborative efforts and a ton of fun to play live.
When listening back to the song while writing the lyrics, I thought a lot about my upbringing. I grew up in a pretty religious setting. 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 words to this song tie to that period of my life. It’s also part A to “Elegy.”
6. “Elegy”
Uri: The second offering Coleman brought to the group after he joined—slow, spacey, and heavy throughout. A very doom-inspired track. The reverb swells on the verse are some of the most drawn-out sounds we’ve gotten yet. We wanted it to feel like you were standing in a wasteland. This song is about bad guys going to their respective layer of hell and rotting there. So much terrible shit continues happening in the world and it feels as if the most evil individuals are always getting away with it. So in my repressed, devout mind, I hope they all burn away in the supposed afterlife forever.
7. “Drift”
Jon: This interlude was written and performed by Coleman during the recording process and acts as a kind of palate cleanser from being blasted by the first half of the record. We thought it would be a nice transition into the second half of the album. Our recording engineer, Mario Cernadas, paired the guitar work with a cool downtempo breakbeat and it just really tied the track together.
8. “Breath”
Uri: This is the call to the answer in “Spectre.” It’s about the ghost of someone you loved still lingering in your mind, and the pain of the constant memory. Good or bad, it’s never easy to forget someone that shared a good portion of your life. We’d shelved this song instrumentally for years, basically right before the pandemic. We’d played renditions of it at local spots around town and always knew it was something special, but never found the right time and place for it on a release. It never really changed other than the vocal melody and the added tremolo leads. I like to sneak in a three-part harmony here and there, and this one was one of my favorites in the studio. This track is another great example of the juxtaposition in guitar work that we always try to incorporate. Slowdive-inspired verses and leads meets Nothing-inspired riffs and energy, we’re very excited to start playing this one in its new form.
9. “Spectre”
Jon: This track started out as a riff I’d play on acoustic guitar at home. A few years ago we roughly wrote it out, recorded one voice memo, and never played it again. Ever. Right before we hit the studio, Nick had categorized all our practice memos. He resurfaced that recording from the vault and after listening back we knew it had to be on the record. We broke it down on our white board and I don’t think we really changed anything. It was kind of my ode to Duster in a way, or my love for that kind of slowcore/heavy music. Like “Echo, Bravo” but sadder. Lyrically, this song represents one's own inability to let go of things, feelings, or people that aren’t good for you. These lyrics were written with the hope that listeners struggling with this kind of emotion can find the strength to move forward.
10. “Flare”
Jon: “Flare” is an instrumental interlude I’d play during practice in between songs. It always reminds me of a waking dream, or the sound a color wheel would make spinning off into space, which we thought led really well into the last two songs of the record.
11. “Iso”
Uri: I think this is the first intentional love song I ever wrote. I had the melody and lyrics for the chorus cemented as soon as it came to life. The perspective is that of someone on a voyage that doesn’t know if they’re making it back home, but is fighting hard to do so. In a perfect world, this would be the intro to the record. The main riff was inspired by the feeling of when I first listened to Hum’s Inlet. Their influence on us is no secret, and this song definitely feels like an ode to that record for me. I wanted the verses to make you feel like you were floating adrift somewhere, and the break before the end of the song kinda makes that feeling uneasy. Triumphant at first, then ominous in the end. My favorite part is reintroducing and altering the intro riff into what I would always call the “evil riff” in practice to finish out the track.
12. “U.S.D.D.O.S.”
Jon: “U.S.D.D.O.S.” is an acronym for a line taken from the poem “The Romantic Dogs” by Chilean poet Roberto Bolaño: “un sueño dentro de otro sueño,” which translates to “a dream within another dream.” Chameleon as a whole always felt cinematic to us, almost like an entire movie within a record. This song was also an older idea left on the back burner that we would work on every so often over the years. When we began recording Chameleon we knew this would be the perfect ending to the album. It’s an endless build into destruction and almost sounds like a spaceship crashing into a million pieces. Corey Coffman, who mixed and mastered the record, snuck in a small clip from the movie Alien. If you listen hard enough toward the end of the song you may hear it. Lyrically, it’s the final goodbye from the same traveler in “Iso.” In the moments before death, a delirious apology to their loved one before their unfortunate demise, circling back to a period of mourning and the start of the album.
