Australian metal pioneers Sunk Loto have returned with a brand new single, Dead Shadows, ushering in another powerful chapter for one of the country’s most important alternative metal bands.
Arriving as their first new material since 2024’s God Complex, Dead Shadows lands with a fresh music video, and that alone makes this release feel huge. It marks the first video clip to actually feature the band since 2003, bringing Sunk Loto back into full visual force after more than two decades.
Produced by Sunk Loto alongside Forrester Savell, known for his work with Karnivool, Make Them Suffer and Animals As Leaders, with engineering from Luke Palmer, who has worked with Dead Letter Circus, Boo Seeka and Jacob Lee, Dead Shadows feels like a band reaching back into the fire of their past while pushing hard into the future.
The track carries that unmistakable Sunk Loto weight. The guitars simmer and bite, the atmosphere feels heavy and tense, and Jason Brown’s vocals cut right through the middle of it all. There is a real sense of control in the chaos here, the kind of heaviness that does not need to overstate itself because the pressure is already there from the first hit.
Following the massive Between Birth and Death 20 year anniversary tour in late 2023, the band reconnected early in 2024 with a handful of ideas that quickly turned into four new tracks, including Dead Shadows. Not long after, they entered the studio with Forrester Savell to bring that new material to life.
The band shared that Dead Shadows felt like the right first single after a few years away, sitting in that space between where they have come from and where they are heading. It is a strong statement from a band that has always had its own lane, and it gives Jas’ vocals plenty of room to breathe, burn and command the track.
Formed on the Gold Coast in 1997, Sunk Loto built a legacy that still hits hard today. They were one of the key forces in Australia’s late 90s and early 2000s alternative metal surge, signing to Sony Music Australia as teenagers and quickly becoming a band that felt bigger than the local scene around them.
Across their career, Sunk Loto toured globally, tore across major festival stages and released two landmark albums in 2000’s Big Picture Lies and 2003’s Between Birth and Death. Their sound was often spoken about alongside bands like Korn, Deftones and Sevendust, but Sunk Loto always had their own Australian grit and intensity running through everything they did.
After what felt like the end of an era in 2007, the band fell silent for 15 years. Then in 2022, Sunk Loto came roaring back, selling out a national tour and reminding everyone just how much power still lived inside these songs. That momentum continued with the 20 year anniversary tour for Between Birth and Death in 2023, followed by new singles The Gallows Wait and God Complex.
Now in 2026, Sunk Loto feels alive in a different way again. Jason Brown on vocals and guitar, Dane Brown on drums and Sean Van Gennip on bass are joined by lead guitarist Rohan Stevenson, with Dead Shadows expanding the band’s trademark ferocity into fresh sonic territory.
This August, Sunk Loto return to the stage for their first live performances since 2023, with sold out shows locked in for Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. These will be intimate rooms, no barriers, and exactly the kind of setting where a track like Dead Shadows should absolutely crush.
For longtime fans, Dead Shadows feels like another reward for keeping the faith. For newer listeners, it is a heavy, focused and powerful entry point into a band that helped shape a major part of Australian heavy music history.
Sunk Loto are not just back for nostalgia. Dead Shadows proves there is still fire in the machine, and this new chapter is only just starting.
