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NARA’S ROOM

Tearless, thoughtless
(Mtn Laurel Recording Co.)
Add date: 5.19.2026
Release date: 4.24.2026




Inside Nara’s Room, one might find inflatable furniture reflecting the blue light of a silver box television, a DVD icon hypnotically bouncing from one corner of the screen to the next. The noisy pop-rock quartet Nara’s Room, led by songwriter Nara Avakian (they/them), became known for their energetic and immersive live sets around New York. Following up their 2024 debut album Glassy star, Nara’s Room use their new album Tearless, thoughtless to explore clever sampling, trip-hop influence, and a Y2K pop production style that feels as futuristic as it does nostalgic. 

Avakian’s ruminations are elevated by bandmembers Ethan Nash (bass), Will Fisher (ambient duty, production), and Brendan Jones (drums) — who wave a sonic wand that covers the music in metallic sparkles and digital ice. Beneath the chrome, plastic, and pixels lie the vulnerability of Avakian’s childhood, rooted in mercurial intensity, family estrangement, and the histories of Armenian diasporic displacement that color their whole existence. They reflect on Tearless, thoughtless as a musical memoir of resilience, and an homage to the physical media and television that offered a means of escape, a safe place to cope with their difficulties.

Opener “DVD menu” beckons the listener to log on with a synthesized crescendo of digital wind and frequencies. The song is an excerpt from “an insane synthesize/pedal free jam that lasted 15 minutes” Avakian recalls. “Before sessions, we’d all warm up with a free-flowing jam session. I’d always trick the boys by playing the guitar part for a song that I had already written. And by the end of the session they’d say ‘we should make that into a song!’ and I’d laugh and say, “it’s already a song! Let’s get going.’”

“Reseda” follows, a glossy, yet distorted anthem about receding to Reseda Blvd., a winding road from Avakian’s youth in the San Fernando Valley of California. Though as a whole, Tearless, thoughtless is reflective of darkly significant chapters of Avakian’s life, the band’s companionship and humor often shine through their blasted-out, otherworldly songs. Glimmers of hope feel like part of the pain process. (“As long as I have my boys, I’ll be around”) Avakian proudly declares. 

“Lizzie McGuire” fuses all the main elements of Tearless, thoughtless with a wink. An arabian scale guitar hook plays call and response with Avakian, who paints the scene of watching the titular 2001 teen comedy down to the “weight of the piss in their bladder” waiting for a commercial break. Over layers of varied guitar tones, Avakian recalls the thrill of impermanent media and the lengths they went to cherish the moments with TV that comforted them from fear and abuse. The song was co-produced by James Duncan, a dear friend and producer of the band’s first EP Topanga swirl, who appropriately added a teenage touch by re-amping the song’s guitar hook through a low-watt karaoke amplifier. “I grew up thinking that my world of Lizzie McGuire, Michelle Branch, and frosted eye shadow would be that way forever, and I couldn’t wait to be an adult in that world.” Nara recalls. “But then everything changed." 

The lush and unpredictable funk rock cut “miniDV,” named after a type of video cassette, playfully thrashes and ushers in “AOL away msg” — the intermission of Tearless, thoughtless. Avakian breaks the fourth wall atop disorienting and meditative lobby music, giving physical media listeners the chance to flip their record or cassette and return to Nara’s Room for “side 2.” 

Side 2 holds the centerpiece of Tearless, thoughtless — the transportive and hypnotic seven-minute ballad “Tucson.” “Singing on the couch quietly, I never knew I’d disappear from my family” Avakian begins over their signature frosty acoustic. “This song is my memoir,” they affirm. “It’s told through the image of Linda Ronstadt in her elderhood singing with her family in her Tucson living room as the final scene in her biographical documentary.” 

Using Ronstadt’s heartbreaking voice loss to parallel their own struggles, Avakian reconciles with images and memories of their Armenian heritage, even introducing a hypothetical son to ponder if they might unintentionally pass down their own intergenerational trauma (“I sing in the Tucson living room dreaming my diasporic dreams / Neither here nor there I cry / Tearless, I think thoughtless / If I had a son in Tucson, he’d hate me”).

Much like “Lizzie McGuire,” Avakian’s influence from 2000s Western media merges with their diasporic meditations in “Tucson,” juxtaposing the Middle Eastern lament “I search from the river to the sea” with a reversed record-scratch adornment. “The color of pomegranates is in the fire / Where there were no bad movies on the TV” references not only the 1969 acclaimed high art film The Color of Pomegranates by Soviet-Armenian Sergei Parajanov, but their own name “Nara,” which translates to the deep red color of pomegranates in Armenian, or more simply — “fire.” 

“Tucson” eventually swells into a billowy jam, where the band coalesce into their lane of being loud, clever, and heavy — but never aggressive. Due to their shared influence of trip-hop greats Portishead and Massive Attack, the band’s vaporous rock makes Avakian’s dried up dream feel like it’s delicately falling through their fingertips. 

Instrumental epilogue “Repair” powers down the album and guides listeners to log off and exit Nara’s Room. “‘Repair’ was a complete accident and was the result of producer Will and I messing around.” Avakian reminisces. “It’s a realization that repairing the past hurts just as much as when it broke in the first place.” 

Album bio by Mallory Hawk