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Shark River (Rose Garden)
Add date: 1.20.2026
Release date: 1.16.2026
Links:
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Instagram
Official Website
Spotify
Tidal
YouTube
Wherever you go, there you are. It’s a familiar adage to anyone who’s ever tried to outrun their demons, but it feels particularly cruel for a traveling musician.
No one knows this better than Noah Rauchwerk, whose life on the road as a touring drummer offers him precious little stability and plenty of time for reflection. Thanks to his work with artists like Samia, Willow Avalon, and Renny Conti, his days are chopped up between long drives, crowded venues, and strange hotels. His years are chopped up between monthslong nationwide tours and sporadic, meandering stays back in New York and New Jersey while he waits to leave again.
“I’m home and I’m away from home,” he explains. “And every time, I promise myself ‘When I’m home, I’ll finally do this.’ Or ‘When I’m back on tour, I’ll finally do that.’”
This sense of lacking a permanent home permeates much of Rauchwerk’s own music as Wormy, the artist project he’s been writing for since 2021. His discomfort with impermanence comes to a head on his second album Shark River, which finds Rauchwerk grappling with the splintered friendships, shattered relationships, and stagnating uncertainty produced by a life in constant motion.
The album isn’t unlike a tour itself, full of hyper-detailed vignettes sewn together by introspective, window-gazing musings on life, love, and regret. In “Cocaine Bear,” Rauchwerk contemplates his own death in between trips to Costco and aimless movie marathons during a day off on tour. In “27 Days,” he questions the future of a brief but intimate relationship he leaves behind in a foreign country. And in “I Hate You,” he laments the fragmented nature of adult relationships as people recede into their busy lives.
Skillful production and backing vocals from his bandmates Renny Conti and Samia Finnerty drench most of the record in a sepia-toned indie glow complete with the occasional pedal steel, but Rauchwerk’s vocals betray his fondness for emo-leaning folk luminaries like Bright Eyes and the Mountain Goats. Sometimes, his singing feels more or less like melodic speaking, a friend telling you about a hard day over a couple of beers; other times, you can feel his panic as he shouts into the microphone.
Interestingly, the album’s moments of calm reside mostly in songs about past relationships, recollections of brief emotional homes Rauchwerk built, lived in for a time, and then lost or dismantled. As he recalls long conversations in the hot tub and pajama-clad Love Island marathons, you can feel the pain in his recognition that these moments were fleeting. When, he asks, will something finally be permanent?
“I think a lot of the album is about not realizing that something is good until after it’s over,” he says. “Exploring these beautiful moments you had and being like ‘Oh, maybe they were just good.’”
Rauchwerk is adept at dressing up his fears in self-deprecating humor, self-aware enough to recognize that many of his problems are of his own creation. But he also struggles with the idea that safety and comfort elude him, even in the places he assumed he could reliably find them. This sentiment inspired the album’s title, the name of a town in New Jersey but also a potent metaphor for feeling unsafe in a supposedly safe place.
“I remember hearing this story as a kid where a shark got into a river in New Jersey, and it always terrified me because when you go into a creek, the one thing you’re thinking is ‘At least there are no sharks in here,’” Rauchwerk says. “You go back to a familiar place and feel like it’s gonna solve your problems, but your problems follow you.”
The album asks many of the questions that haunt people as they grow shakily into adulthood. Will I ever find love that endures? Will my friend ever call me back? What’s the difference between building a life and just living a life? But amidst the self-doubt and regret that flow through Shark River, there are glimmers of optimism that keep Rauchwerk afloat. Even when he’s singing about giving up, you get the feeling he never will — that part of a life in motion is the understanding that you keep moving forward. Eventually, you’ll get home.
“Sometimes all you can do is reckon with it,” he says. “Say okay, now I understand this about myself, and next time I approach this, it’s going to be in a positive way. Next time, I’ll get it right.”
Photo Credit: Darryl Rahn
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Official Website
Spotify
Tidal
YouTube
Wherever you go, there you are. It’s a familiar adage to anyone who’s ever tried to outrun their demons, but it feels particularly cruel for a traveling musician.
No one knows this better than Noah Rauchwerk, whose life on the road as a touring drummer offers him precious little stability and plenty of time for reflection. Thanks to his work with artists like Samia, Willow Avalon, and Renny Conti, his days are chopped up between long drives, crowded venues, and strange hotels. His years are chopped up between monthslong nationwide tours and sporadic, meandering stays back in New York and New Jersey while he waits to leave again.
“I’m home and I’m away from home,” he explains. “And every time, I promise myself ‘When I’m home, I’ll finally do this.’ Or ‘When I’m back on tour, I’ll finally do that.’”
This sense of lacking a permanent home permeates much of Rauchwerk’s own music as Wormy, the artist project he’s been writing for since 2021. His discomfort with impermanence comes to a head on his second album Shark River, which finds Rauchwerk grappling with the splintered friendships, shattered relationships, and stagnating uncertainty produced by a life in constant motion.
The album isn’t unlike a tour itself, full of hyper-detailed vignettes sewn together by introspective, window-gazing musings on life, love, and regret. In “Cocaine Bear,” Rauchwerk contemplates his own death in between trips to Costco and aimless movie marathons during a day off on tour. In “27 Days,” he questions the future of a brief but intimate relationship he leaves behind in a foreign country. And in “I Hate You,” he laments the fragmented nature of adult relationships as people recede into their busy lives.
Skillful production and backing vocals from his bandmates Renny Conti and Samia Finnerty drench most of the record in a sepia-toned indie glow complete with the occasional pedal steel, but Rauchwerk’s vocals betray his fondness for emo-leaning folk luminaries like Bright Eyes and the Mountain Goats. Sometimes, his singing feels more or less like melodic speaking, a friend telling you about a hard day over a couple of beers; other times, you can feel his panic as he shouts into the microphone.
Interestingly, the album’s moments of calm reside mostly in songs about past relationships, recollections of brief emotional homes Rauchwerk built, lived in for a time, and then lost or dismantled. As he recalls long conversations in the hot tub and pajama-clad Love Island marathons, you can feel the pain in his recognition that these moments were fleeting. When, he asks, will something finally be permanent?
“I think a lot of the album is about not realizing that something is good until after it’s over,” he says. “Exploring these beautiful moments you had and being like ‘Oh, maybe they were just good.’”
Rauchwerk is adept at dressing up his fears in self-deprecating humor, self-aware enough to recognize that many of his problems are of his own creation. But he also struggles with the idea that safety and comfort elude him, even in the places he assumed he could reliably find them. This sentiment inspired the album’s title, the name of a town in New Jersey but also a potent metaphor for feeling unsafe in a supposedly safe place.
“I remember hearing this story as a kid where a shark got into a river in New Jersey, and it always terrified me because when you go into a creek, the one thing you’re thinking is ‘At least there are no sharks in here,’” Rauchwerk says. “You go back to a familiar place and feel like it’s gonna solve your problems, but your problems follow you.”
The album asks many of the questions that haunt people as they grow shakily into adulthood. Will I ever find love that endures? Will my friend ever call me back? What’s the difference between building a life and just living a life? But amidst the self-doubt and regret that flow through Shark River, there are glimmers of optimism that keep Rauchwerk afloat. Even when he’s singing about giving up, you get the feeling he never will — that part of a life in motion is the understanding that you keep moving forward. Eventually, you’ll get home.
“Sometimes all you can do is reckon with it,” he says. “Say okay, now I understand this about myself, and next time I approach this, it’s going to be in a positive way. Next time, I’ll get it right.”
Photo Credit: Darryl Rahn