POLARIS have released "Without You", their first new music in three years, and the subject is the one the band have spent those three years living inside: the death of guitarist Ryan Siew in 2023.
"Never did we imagine that we would one day have reason to write this song," the band said. "But three years on, we find ourselves still making sense of this immeasurable tragedy, and what it has meant to be left in the wake."
They were blunt about what the track is. "This is the sound of crushing loss, shock, grief and heartache, and the beginning of us learning how to share that with the world."
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Siew died months before "Fatalism" was released — an album that went on to debut at No. 1 on the ARIA chart and take Best Independent Heavy Album at the 2024 AIR Awards, success arriving in the worst possible circumstances. The band toured it, then went quiet.
The video was shot in an empty cathedral, the band playing to nobody, with historical footage of the five of them cut through the present-day performance. The empty room is the whole idea. There is no attempt at a redemptive turn in the last thirty seconds, which is the most honest decision on the record.
"Without You" is out through ADA in Australia and New Zealand and SharpTone Records worldwide.
POLARIS return to Europe this month on a run that opens September 19 in Leeds and closes October 13 in Berlin, with I PREVAIL supporting. Home dates follow: the Hellbound Cruise from October 22 to 25, and Good Things Festival appearances in December.
Sydney's metalcore scene has produced a lot of bands in the last decade, and POLARIS were among the few whose records rewarded repeat listening rather than a single playlist placement. What happens next for them is unresolved — "Without You" is a single, not an album announcement, and the band have been careful not to promise more than they are ready to deliver. But it is a return, and the first one they have made with the band's shape permanently changed.