Sungaze return with their first single of 2026, unveiling the emotionally saturated and cinematic Always Looking Behind. Expansive yet deeply personal, the track combines strands of shoegaze, grunge, and midwest emo vulnerability into something that feels broad but rooted in the smallest, most fragile moments. Sungaze excel at this kind of amalgamation where more resonant sounds coexist with confessional intimacy.
Inspired by the final night spent in vocalist Ivory Snow’s childhood home, on the eve of her father’s move to hospice, Always Looking Behind functions as a gesture of compassion toward her younger self and a meditation on the dangers of romanticizing the past.
The song is introspective and quietly devastating, carrying the sensation of returning to a place that once shaped a life but no longer feels like home.
Snow shares: “My dad died a month after I turned 17. There were a lot of things in my childhood that forced me to grow up a bit quicker than I wanted to, but I’ve always seen his death as the biggest catalyst. In a way, this project and this part of me would not exist without that experience and the chain reaction it set off. It’s what led me to meet Ian [Hilvert, lead guitar].
“It got worse after my dad’s death, but I’ve always been a pretty nostalgic person and am well-acquainted with the feeling of missing something even before it’s gone–almost like a sort of preemptive or anticipatory grief. Over time, I’ve found that this proclivity I have for losing myself to the past has prevented me from living fully in the present. I realized I didn’t want to someday reach the end of my life and look back only to see I missed everything because I was always looking behind.”
A tension between honoring memory and being confined by it anchors the song’s center, unfolding like a fragile bridge linking two distant iterations of the same self.
Snow continues: “I view this song as a conversation between my present day self and the 17 year old version of me who felt like her world was falling apart; like she was dying right alongside her favorite person. I wanted to allow her to tell her story, through her own lens.
“Historically, it’s been a real challenge for me to find the balance between tapping into past experiences and being consumed by them. I think for a while I felt like it would be inauthentic to sing about things that happened and how I felt about them if I wasn’t still feeling that way. So I would drum up these past hurts and hold onto them, like clinging to embers from a dying fire with my bare hands. I’m slowly learning how to view the fire from a distance, how to draw upon its warmth without stoking it unnecessarily.”
ZR