Words by Ali Williams
Pix by Sarah Gilpin Photography
After a 7-year hiatus, Dead Of Winter finally returned to Brisneyland, and in true metal style it didn’t knock and respectfully ask if the neighbours were home; it kicked the motherfucking door in of the Mansfield Tavern and reminded everyone the heavy scene was never dead. It was just waiting for someone to plug the bastard back in.
Dead Of Winter has never been just another festival with too many black shirts and not enough hydration. Born in 2009 as a home for heavy music, dark art, horror culture and the gloriously unmarketable people who keep scenes alive, the festival built itself into a genuine Brisbane institution. Its 2019 edition was enormous, sprawling across 6 stages with 61 bands and enough chaos to make a council officer develop a facial twitch. Then came the long silence.
So when Dead Of Winter announced its resurrection for 2026, it carried more weight than a simple gig poster. This was a scene checkpoint. A reunion. A stress test for knees, livers, friendships and the human ability to choose between clashing bands without becoming emotionally unwell.
The decision to move the fest to a new site, being the Mansfield Tavern, was a wise one. Instead of sending punters on a cursed pilgrimage between venues, the festival stacked its carnage into three stages: The main room was split between the HEAVY Main Room Stage and the Bezerk Main Room Stage, letting bands trade blows across the day while the Sense Music Media Sports Bar Stage ran its own filthy little parallel universe. It was efficient, loud, and only mildly hostile to people trying to make responsible decisions, which is really all anyone can ask from an all-day heavy festival.
The itinerary was not gentle. The Sports Bar opened the day with Roronoah, then rolled through ZZADE, Grizzlyshark, Boof Heads, Mitch, Please, Space X Dragon, Black Rheno, Astrodeath, Dartz, Brace, Hammers, Rick Dangerous And The Silkie Bantams, Bulletbelt and Beanflipper. Meanwhile, the Bezerk Stage carried Helltrippers, R.U.B, Pizza Death, Dad Fight, Flangipanis, Slim Krusty, Toe To Toe andJay & Lindsay Duo from Frenzal Rhomb. Across the room, the HEAVY Stage housed Valtozash, Sydonia, Witchgrinder, Nicolas Cage Fighter, The Neptune Power Federation, Lo!, Monster Zoku Onsomb!, Mammal and DZ Deathrays, with The Space Cowboy, Cult The Show and Flames Of Desire making sure the spaces between bands were not wasted on anything ridiculous like silence or emotional regulation.
That structure gave the day its heartbeat. You could either commit to a stage and let it maul you in one place, or bounce between rooms like a traumatised pinball with excellent taste. Most people chose option two, because humans are idiots and festival FOMO is apparently stronger than self-preservation.
The Sports Bar quickly became one of the day’s best surprises. It had that smaller-room magic where bands cannot hide behind production, and crowds cannot pretend they are not involved. Mitch, Please were a perfect early punch of personality and musical whiplash. Their nerd-punk chaos landed beautifully in a room that probably expected to host people arguing over pool tables, not a band capable of being funny, sharp and genuinely musically tight without turning the whole thing into a comedy act wearing a bass guitar. They were ridiculous in all the right ways, which is a far rarer skill than people think. Plenty of bands try to be weird. Mitch, Please made it useful.
Space X Dragon followed with a set that felt built for people who enjoy their rock with imagination and actual movement. There was a looseness to them that made the room lean in rather than check out. They gave the Sports Bar a different shape, one that removed the blunt force and instead injected a stranger propulsion, dragging the crowd into their orbit without begging for attention like a band with three sponsored posts and no songs. It worked because it felt confident, not needy.
Black Rheno, however, were not there to negotiate. They hit the room with sludge, grind and groove stitched together like a threat made by people who know how much fun violence can sound when handled by professionals. Their set was one of those beautiful festival moments where anyone casually wandering in for a drink suddenly found themselves in the middle of something with teeth. There was no soft entry point. You were either in it or you were furniture.
Hammers brought the kind of heavy rock swagger that only works when a band can actually back it up. Thankfully, they can. Their set felt muscular without being stupid, loose without falling apart, and rowdy without committing affray. They have that Queensland/Northern Rivers heavy-rock dirt under the fingernails, the kind that smells faintly of beer, amps and regrettable decisions, and at Dead Of Winter it landed exactly where it needed to. In a day full of bands trying to make an impact, Hammers don’t have to over-explain themselves. They just hit hard and let the room deal with the consequences.
Then there was Beanflipper. Headlining the small stage was scheduling success rather than a formal complaint against the concept of peace. The Melbourne grind-punk cult legends closed that room like men who had absolutely no interest in behaving age-appropriately, and thank Christ for that. Their set was ugly, fast, abrasive and completely alive. Not polished. Not polite. Not remotely interested in being digestible. It was the sound of a band that had survived long enough to stop caring about being approved of, which naturally made them one of the most enjoyable things on the bill.
Inside the main room, the HEAVY stage delivered one of the day’s great visual and sonic shifts with Witchgrinder. You do not accidentally watch Witchgrinder. They arrive with industrial metal theatrics and horror-drenched intent, and suddenly everyone remembers that stage presence is supposed to mean more than standing near smoke and hoping the lighting guy does personality for you. They were heavy, dramatic and committed without slipping into cartoon territory, which is harder than it looks when you are working in a genre that welcomes leather, machinery and doom like normal adults welcome brunch.
Dad Fight on the Bezerk stage were a different kind of necessary. Brisbane pub-punk belongs at a festival like this because it stops the day from becoming too self-serious. Their set had the reckless joy of mates who found out too late that their joke had become a functioning band. That is not an insult. That is half the charm. They were sweaty, direct and obnoxiously fun, the kind of band that makes the room feel less like an audience and more like a backyard gathering that got raided by amplifiers.
The Neptune Power Federation brought the theatre in a more cosmic, fuzz-soaked direction. They are the sort of band that makes no sense if you describe them sober, but perfect sense once they are in front of you. Occult rock, psychedelic swagger, huge riffs and full commitment to the bit, except it is not really a bit when the musicianship underneath is that solid. Their set had colour, personality and a sense of drama that lifted the middle of the day right when lesser festivals start to sag like a wet cardboard coffin.
Flangipanis were another essential Dead Of Winter inclusion, delivering the kind of punk set that knows how long it should be and exactly how much nonsense it can get away with. They were bratty, fast and allergic to overthinking. In a lineup stacked with heaviness, their presence cut through with humour and bite. Not every set needs to sound like the gates of hell opening. Sometimes it just needs to sound like someone stole the keys and drove the van into good taste.
Slim Krusty kept the main room filthy and in beast mode. There is something deeply satisfying about watching a performer who understands their lane only to then drop a musician burnout with both hands off the wheel. The set had that scuzzy, punked-up, rockabilly-adjacent menace. Slim Krusty were rough around the edges, but deliberately so, and the crowd ate it up like the respectable little gremlins they were.
Lo! were one of the day’s heavier gut punches. Their set did not rely on cheap volume tricks or macho posturing. It had weight, pressure and atmosphere, the sort of heaviness that feels less like being punched and more like being slowly buried with excellent drum tone. In a festival full of fast hits and big personalities, Lo! brought severity. They were not there to charm. They were there to drag the room somewhere darker and leave fingerprints on the walls.
Mammal were exactly the kind of band Dead Of Winter needed near the top end of the night. There are bands that play heavy music, and there are bands that weaponise momentum. Mammal does the second one. Funk, rock, rap-metal bite and political fire all slammed together with the confidence of a band that knows how to command a large room without asking permission. Ezekiel Ox is one of the country’s most magnetic frontmen, and the band around him gave the set the muscle it needed. After a full day of genre collisions, Mammal somehow still managed to jolt the place awake again, which is rude behaviour after everyone had already donated most of their spinal fluid to the cause.
Jay & Lindsay Duo from Frenzal Rhomb offered one of the day’s great pressure-release moments. It is hard to overstate how much goodwill follows them into a room, and they did not waste it. Their set felt loose, funny and warmly chaotic, the kind of performance that reminds you punk can age without becoming embarrassing, provided the people doing it still have songs, timing and a working hatred of bullshit. They gave the crowd a laugh without softening the day, which is a deceptively neat trick.
And then DZ Deathrays closed the thing properly.
There was always going to be pressure on them being hometown headliners at a festival resurrection. for a crowd that had been on its feet since late morning and had consumed enough riffs and beer to void several warranties. But DZ Deathrays did what DZ Deathrays do: they turned exhaustion into movement. Their set did not need theatrics because the songs do the damage. Big riffs, dance-punk urgency, noise-rock bite and that very Brisbane ability to sound both loose and lethal at the same time. They were the correct ending to the day because they did not treat the headline slot like a coronation. They treated it like a final chance to wring whatever was left out of the room.
Dead Of Winter returned to honour the old beast without embalming it. The lineup stretched across generations and subgenres. There were underground lifers, local wrecking crews, interstate crushers, Kiwi imports, punk idiots, sludge merchants, industrial monsters, occult fuzz weirdos and ample sideshow madness. Was it a lot? Absolutely. Was it too much? Also yes. That is the point. Dead Of Winter is not built for polite consumption. It is built for people who want to leave with sore feet, ringing ears, ten new band recommendations and the vague feeling they have been emotionally mugged by community spirit.
Mansfield Tavern handled the resurrection with surprising confidence, the stages kept the day moving, and the crowd gave the festival what it needed most: proof that the appetite for this kind of thing has not gone anywhere. Brisbane’s heavy underworld is still alive, still weird, still loyal and still apparently willing to spend an entire Saturday being yelled at by bands in dark rooms. Dead Of Winter came back from the grave.
The grave looked relieved to be rid of it.
