SPIRITBOX Drops Surprise New Single ‘Mourning,’ First New Music Since 2025’s ‘Tsunami Sea’

Summary

• Spiritbox surprise-released “Mourning”, their first new music since 2025’s Tsunami Sea.
• The single arrives with an official video co-directed by Alex Bemis and guitarist Mike Stringer.
• No new album has been announced, but “Mourning” strongly hints that Spiritbox are entering a new creative cycle.

Spiritbox have returned with “Mourning,” their first new song since 2025’s Tsunami Sea, and the single sounds less like unfinished business from that album than an early look at whatever the Canadian metal band intends to build next.

Spiritbox released “Mourning” on September 8, 2026, through Pale Chord and Rise Records, pairing the track with an official music video co-directed by Alex Bemis and guitarist Mike Stringer. The release arrived with little ceremony compared with the lengthy promotional campaigns that increasingly surround major metal singles, which is probably the better way to handle a song meant to introduce a new phase anyway.

The important detail is not simply that Spiritbox have another song available. Bands do that occasionally. Someone at Spotify would become nervous if they stopped.

What makes “Mourning” interesting is how deliberately it appears to separate Spiritbox from the visual and musical language surrounding Tsunami Sea.

Pale Chord describes the single as the band’s first new music since the 2025 album and, more significantly, as an initial indication of “what comes next” for Spiritbox. No new album or EP has been announced, so treating “Mourning” as confirmation of a third LP would be premature. The wording still makes the song difficult to dismiss as a random standalone track.

“Mourning” favors atmosphere before brute force

Anyone waiting for Spiritbox to spend four minutes repeatedly demonstrating that their amplifiers work may find “Mourning” surprisingly restrained.

Courtney LaPlante’s clean vocals carry much of the track, while Stringer’s guitar work, percussion and ambient layers expand and contract around her. The heavier sections arrive as part of that progression instead of behaving like mandatory checkpoints on a modern metalcore assembly line.

The result still sounds recognizably like Spiritbox, particularly in the band’s fixation on contrast, but the proportions have changed.

Rock Sound characterized the song through its combination of modern metal, shoegaze and post-metal elements, while the band’s official release notes emphasize its quieter passages and gradual movement toward denser textures.

So this distinction matters after Tsunami Sea. Spiritbox have already demonstrated that they can move between djent-derived heaviness, electronic textures, large melodic sections and extreme vocals without sounding like four unrelated bands sharing rehearsal space. “Mourning” does not abandon any of those instincts. It simply gives space and melody more authority over the arrangement.

The production also keeps the band’s established creative circle intact. Stringer co-produced “Mourning” with Dan Braunstein, while the official release credits list Courtney LaPlante, Stringer and Braunstein among the songwriters and composers. Josh Gilbert handles bass and backing vocals, Zev Rose plays drums, and Joseph McQueen is credited with mixing. The digital single runs 4 minutes and 16 seconds.

The “Mourning” video makes the change even harder to miss

Spiritbox are not being particularly subtle about leaving the visual world of Tsunami Sea behind.

The album campaign leaned heavily on stark, monochromatic imagery. “Mourning” moves toward colorful outdoor environments and natural landscapes, with the band performing around unusual structures while a hooded figure appears throughout the video.

Kerrang noted the shift from the previous era’s black-and-white presentation, while Pale Chord’s own description explicitly frames the video as a visual evolution.

That does not automatically mean every visual choice contains a coded message about Album Three. Sometimes a strange structure in a metal video really is just a strange structure in a metal video.

Pairing such a pronounced aesthetic change with language about “what comes next,” though, gives the release the feel of a reset rather than an appendix to Tsunami Sea.

Spiritbox picked a useful moment to start moving forward

“Mourning” also arrives immediately before Spiritbox return to the road.

The band’s UK and European headline tour with Jinjer and Dying Wish begins September 12 in Glasgow and continues through October 9 in Paris. Stops include Manchester, London, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Amsterdam and several other European cities.

A fresh song arriving four days before that run gives Spiritbox something genuinely new to introduce onstage instead of extending the Tsunami Sea campaign indefinitely.

Their schedule gets considerably larger later in the year.

Spiritbox are scheduled to appear as special guests for Metallica at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut on November 21, an event tied to the venue’s 25th anniversary. The booking is officially listed by Mohegan Sun.

Australian dates follow in December as part of the Good Things festival, giving “Mourning” several months of live exposure before 2026 ends.

Is “Mourning” the beginning of the next Spiritbox album?

That remains the useful unanswered question.

Spiritbox have not announced a new album, EP, title, release date or formal recording cycle connected to “Mourning.” Calling this the first single from Album Three would therefore turn speculation into fact, which is an old music-news trick that search engines may enjoy more than readers do.

The language surrounding the release does leave the door conspicuously open.

Pale Chord calls “Mourning” the first glimpse of what comes next. Its sound places greater emphasis on atmospheric restraint. Its video abandons much of the monochromatic identity associated with Tsunami Sea. Its release arrives immediately before a major touring stretch.

Taken together, those choices make “Mourning” feel like the first marker of a new Spiritbox period, even if the band is not ready to explain exactly what that period contains.

The safest conclusion is also the more interesting one: Spiritbox are moving forward, and they are doing it without simply writing Tsunami Sea Part II.

Whether “Mourning” eventually becomes the opening move in another album campaign or remains a standalone bridge between records should become clearer once the band gets through its fall touring schedule.

For the moment, Spiritbox have supplied the first clue. They have wisely avoided supplying the instruction manual.

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