aurorawave are back with “Vex,” a new single that continues frontman Nathan Feinstein’s ongoing effort to erase the lines separating reggae, alternative rock and some of the heavier music that shaped him long before the project began.
The new track follows the release of aurorawave’s sophomore album, Monument, and arrives during a period in which the Los Angeles band has increasingly settled into the sound it calls reggaecore: reggae rhythms and melodic instincts colliding with the weight, aggression and guitar-driven intensity of metal and hardcore.
Released in August 2025, the 11-track Monument brought together collaborators from both sides of aurorawave’s musical world. Aaron Gillespie of Underoath appears on “Judge Me,” Frankie Palmeri of Emmure joins “Tibetan Sky Burial,” and Left To Suffer appears on “Welcome To Your Nightmare.” On the other side of the spectrum, The Movement joins “Seize The Day,” Jesse Royal appears on “Throwing Shade,” and Kumar Fyah features on “Suffocate,” while Ekoh guests on “Never Gonna Stop Us.”
Feinstein, who performs as Nathan Aurora, first built a substantial following as the frontman of Iya Terra, one of the prominent groups to emerge from the modern American roots-reggae scene. When that chapter ended, aurorawave allowed him to reconnect reggae with the heavier music that had also shaped his musical identity.
“I grew up playing metal and I played reggae for a long time,” Aurora previously told The Pier. “So, the freedom to just do both? I love that.”
“Vex” extends that freedom beyond the album cycle that produced Monument. Before aurorawave, he also found an unexpected bridge between scenes through Pop Punk Goes Reggae, his project reimagining songs associated with pop-punk and emo through a reggae lens. Released in 2023, Pop Punk Goes Reggae Vol. 1 included reggae versions of songs including Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Goin Down,” The Used’s “The Taste of Ink,” Yellowcard’s “Ocean Avenue,” Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated,” Story of the Year’s “Until the Day I Die” and My Chemical Romance’s “Helena.”
The project also helped establish the online audience surrounding Nathan Aurora, particularly as his reggae reinterpretations of punk and alternative songs spread through Instagram and TikTok.
aurorawave has taken that same disregard for rigid genre boundaries and turned it into something much heavier.
The band describes its music as a deliberate meeting point between heavy guitar music and reggae rather than a one-off experiment, and Monument made that particularly clear. What began with aurorawave’s self-titled 2024 debut has developed into a catalog where metalcore, hard rock, reggae, hip-hop and melody can occupy the same space without one side being treated as a gimmick.
For Feinstein, the appeal of aurorawave has always seemed to come from not having to decide which version of himself belongs at the center of the music. After years in reggae, a return to heavier sounds has not required leaving that history behind.
Instead, aurorawave continues figuring out just how far the combination can stretch.
Listen to “Vex” from aurorawave now.
