Brisbane’s premier heavy music and dark arts event, the Dead of Winter Festival, is officially rising from the ashes. Dubbed The Resurrection, the festival is locked in for Saturday, 27 June 2026, marking its first return since 2019. Originally launched in 2009, the iconic gathering was forced into a multi-year hiatus following the pandemic.
For its grand comeback, the festival is shifting away from its former home at the Jubilee Hotel to a brand-new venue: the Mansfield Tavern in Brisbane’s southern suburbs. The highly anticipated 2026 edition promises a massive celebration of alternative culture, packing 34 live acts across multiple stages alongside performance art, horror cosplay, visual installations, and dark market stalls. Organisers have unleashed a diverse, genre-spanning lineup headlined by dance-punk and noise-rock heroes DZ Deathrays, alongside heavy hitters like Mammal, Toe To Toe, Beanflipper, and Slim Krusty. Tickets are available now via Oztix and the official Dead of Winter Festival Website.
With the festival fast approaching, HEAVY sent out some questions to all of the bands in order to get to know them better. Today, we chat with VALTOZASH.
Valtozash is a 15-piece jazz-metal big band orchestra based in Brisbane, Australia. Led by composer and electric vibraphonist Andre Bonetti, the group features a massive 13-piece horn section that seamlessly blends the complex improvisation and technical harmonies of big band jazz with the raw, chaotic brutality of progressive heavy metal.
Known for intense time-signature changes, death metal growls, and blistering brass hooks, they are a staple of the experimental music scene. Their discography includes notable releases such as Boiling Solitude and Sundered Synapses.
Q & A Answers from Cameron Whelan, Simon Ward and Andre Bonetti.
HEAVY: DEAD OF WINTER FESTIVAL returns in 2026 after a seven-year hiatus. Why do you think DOW just HAD to return?
VALTOZASH: Because if it didn’t, it would just be dead, instead of Dead of Winter. That’s pretty metal, but would be very sad for Brisbane. Festivals and venues are dropping like parliamentary dignity (I mean, dropping like flies), so it’s great that DOW reemerged. Australia needs it more than ever.
H: What does it mean to your band to be playing DOW?
It’s exciting to be stuffing jazz-metal and the weirder side of heavy music in normal people’s ears. It’s a tricky niche to be in, so when opportunities like this come along, we’re hyped to be bringing the weird. When people who usually just listen to Iron Maiden or Coldplay (or worse: Periphery) hear our music, they usually surprise themselves by how much they dig Valtozash. Expanding people’s horizons or something.
H: Have you ever been to DOW as a punter or playing?
Yes. [Cameron].
No [Andre], because I’m a lazy, poor, jazz-nerd.
H: If so, best memories of the day.
I was meeting up with my mum who was visiting town for a few days, and I suggested we go hang out at DOW. We chilled in the beer garden for the day and drank beers and watched bands; it was a surprisingly wholesome time.
H: It’s a long day of music. What will you be doing to make sure you will still be standing come your set time?
I’ll be utilizing my legs to execute real-time bipedal balance. [Cameron] To help coordinate this effort, I’ll be regularly incorporating beer and sitting down into the process.
I’m a drummer, so I sit down anyhow [Andre].
H: Give me your Top 3 Festival survival tips.
Breakfast is the most important beer of the day. Your body is stronger than you think, until it isn’t; that’s when you no longer think your body is strong. Stretch your neck muscles.
H: Which band – other than yourself – do you think will get up to the most mischief on the day?
I know you said other than ourselves, but seeing as we have 3-times as many members as other bands, we count as another band. Logic. The 14 of us will surely get up to some shit, probably standing rigid in the slams and headbanging the slow tunes.
Other bands, though; Pizza Death or Dad Fight. Possibly Mitch Please, they’re nuts.
H: Run us through your typical live show and what punters can expect.
14-people punching your ear-balls via jazz-metal. Musical chaos and calamity in ways you’ve never seen before. Your genre-bone will snap; Your teeth will hurt; Your ears will bleed with delight. A large group of hooded figures crammed onto a stage, assaulting you with a wall of sound while some guy sometimes yells over it, followed by feelings of awe, confusion, curiosity, and thirst. Twerking.
H: If you could get one band on the line-up to cover one of your songs, who would it be and what song would they cover?
Mitch Please covering Braindeaded. Because it’s an absurd song and Mitch Please are super fun.
H: What’s your latest release?
Sundered Synapses EP. It’s all Jazz Metal finger puppets (but gross monsters, actually it’s quite sickening).
H: Finally, what plans does your band have for the rest of 2026 into 2027?
To spread the Jazz-Metal disease quicker than the Hantavirus. We are recording and developing a new album; plus there’s a few other secret and coooool releases planned.
Might head to Japan sometime. Touring with that many people would be fucking stressful, but having a stress-aneurysm would be an adventure.
