Five Years Later, The Neighbourhood Return To Black & White With “ultraSOUND”

After five years of silence, The Neighbourhood have finally come crawling back out of the grayscale. The California alt-rock band that defined a generation of Tumblr core melancholy is back with a new three-part rollout for their upcoming album, ultraSOUND, the first full-length since 2020’s Chip Chrome & The Mono Tones. The first drop includes three tracks: “Private,” “OMG,” and “Lovebomb,” and from the first few notes, it’s clear they’ve gone back to what made them magnetic in the first place.

The Neighbourhood have always thrived in the in between. That space between romance and self-destruction, between California sunshine and emotional decay. On ultraSOUND, they sound like the ghosts of their own legacy, cinematic and brooding, too self-aware to pretend they don’t know the myth they built. “Private” sets the tone, an intimate, slinky track that balances Jesse Rutherford’s soft falsetto with hypnotic bass and foggy production.

“OMG” pulls you straight into that daydream zone, like an unearthed B-side from I Love You. or Wiped Out!, and “Lovebomb” feels like a classic Neighbourhood confession disguised as a love song, where vulnerability and ego flirt until one gets burned.

The band’s visual world has also come full circle. The cover art and teaser clips ditch the color and go right back to black and white, the aesthetic that once made them internet royalty. No neon suits, no chrome aliens, no digital filters, just shadows, silhouettes, and heartbreak. It’s a return to form, but not a regression. This version of The Neighbourhood feels older, more self assured, less interested in fitting into the playlist algorithm. They know exactly who they are, and more importantly, who they aren’t.

For us at BuzzMusic, this one hits close to home. BuzzMusic was born in California, built out of the same coastal chaos and creative pulse that The Neighbourhood’s music captured so perfectly. Their sound was part of what pulled us to Los Angeles in the first place, that haunting blend of surf, sadness, and style that made LA feel like both a dream and a ghost town at once. The Neighbourhood didn’t just soundtrack our early days, they helped shape the identity of every underground artist and late night writer who came west chasing a feeling. Hearing them return to that world feels like watching the city breathe again.

In a decade where so many bands from their era have tried and failed to adapt to the TikTok economy, The Neighbourhood seem to have cracked the code by doing the opposite. Instead of chasing new trends, they doubled down on atmosphere.

They remembered that mood itself was always their strongest weapon. These new songs don’t sound nostalgic as much as they sound timeless, the kind of music that plays when you’re driving alone at night and every streetlight feels like an omen.

Jesse Rutherford once said that black and white isn’t just an aesthetic, it’s a state of mind. That philosophy seems alive again in ultraSOUND. The three-part release plan feels like a slow, deliberate resurrection, one chapter at a time, like film reels being threaded through the projector. There’s something bold about not giving it all away at once. It makes the wait feel heavier, like they’re savoring their own rebirth.

This isn’t The Neighbourhood reinventing themselves. It’s them reclaiming what everyone else watered down. ultraSOUND doesn’t scream comeback, it whispers it from the dark corner of the room where The Neighbourhood have always felt most at home.