The Neighborhood released (((((ultraSOUND))))) on November 14, 2025, through Warner Records. Their fifth studio album followed 2020’s Chip Chrome & the Mono-Tones and put new songs behind a reunion that had begun a year before the release. The return took shape in both a Los Angeles recording studio and a much smaller rehearsal room.
The musicians reunited in November 2024, then told fans in August 2025 that they were making music again. In their announcement, they described having to navigate relationships, family difficulties and adulthood outside the band during the break. Getting back together meant returning to a partnership that had occupied much of their young adult lives.
Recording began at Conway Studios with longtime collaborator Justyn Pilbrow, then moved to The Beehive in Van Nuys, where Jono Dorr produced the sessions that completed the album. The Beehive was a cramped rehearsal space, and guitarist Zach Abels described the experience in the band’s biography published by promoter Fource as having the freedom and fun of playing in a garage again. “We came back because we wanted to,” he said.
The first public preview offered three songs: “Private,” “OMG” and “Lovebomb.” As Rolling Stone reported, “Private” developed from a GarageBand drum break and a vocal Jesse Rutherford recorded on his phone. “Lovebomb” began with a loop from Dorr and Abels. Those modest starting materials became part of a 15-song album, with “Private” also receiving an official music video before the record arrived.
The band returned to an audience that had grown during its absence. Their older songs continued circulating through streaming and social media, giving the musicians a different situation to come back to than the one they had left. In a September 2026 Pollstar interview, Abels described an ambition to make music that felt particularly true to The Neighborhood, even as the scale of the band’s touring business increased.
Abels also reconsidered what he had once counted as failure. An album that didn’t immediately go viral, or a tour that revisited the same venues while peers moved into bigger rooms, had previously felt discouraging. Looking back, he questioned whether immediate success would have been preferable to the slower path the band had taken. The time away had given him room to develop outside the constant cycle of band work and touring, and to appreciate the return differently.
Rutherford described a similarly practical goal in an August 2026 interview with V Magazine: making another record and getting back on the road would help the musicians reconnect with their listeners and with one another. He acknowledged the expectations surrounding the reunion, but said playing shows had reassured him. The familiar combination of bandmates, songs and an audience gave him confidence once they were performing again.
That change reached his experience onstage. Earlier touring had often been difficult because of depression, technical problems and inexperience, Rutherford explained. During the 2026 run, he said he was enjoying the performances and leaving the stage smiling, with enough energy to imagine playing longer sets.
