Band:	Svalbard
Album:	The Weight Of The Mask
Style:	Post hardcore
Release date:	October 2023

01. Faking It
02. Eternal Spirits
03. Defiance
04. November
05. Lights Out
06. How To Swim Down
07. Be My Tomb
08. Pillar In The Sand
09. To Wilt Beneath The Weight

Chances are you don't feel right with your place in the world. Sometimes you feel like you deserve more, sometimes you feel like you don't actually deserve what you have. Svalbard have a thing or two to say about that.

In my review of the previous record, the pretty excellent When I Die, Will I Get Better?, I started the review by mentioning the whole context of the label change that happened before that record's release. It was a pretty nasty deal, and thankfully the context of the label change for The Weight Of The Mask is a lot less dramatic. It's just that they made it so big that they got picked up by one of the biggest metal labels around, Nuclear Blast. That's a move that feels rewarding to how much more recognition the band could possibly get among the more mainstream side of the metal world, but it's not without reason that when a band moves from an indie label to a major label, there's some skepticism deemed necessary from the fans.

There's more to The Weight Of The Mask than just being Svalbard's first major label release, and the changes from the previous record may or may not have something to do with the label change. It would be disingenuous to believe that Svalbard suddenly have less creative freedom, and going in with the preconception that this will be a more accessibly-packaged Svalbard will just poison the experience. However, changes there are, and some of them are the kind of changes you'd expect considering the context. Some sound-wise, some lyrics-wise.

The worst has been avoided by Svalbard keeping their previous producer, Lewis Johns, around. The production is a bit more polished, but it does just sound like a more polished version of the sound that Svalbard were already acing anyway, with its very specific brightness. The mix of post-hardcore and post-rock was already modus operandi, and The Weight Of The Mask expands it in both directions, with the metal element, namely a black metal nuance to the shoegaze, and a post-metal nuance to the post-hardcore, getting intensified. At the same time, the blissful post-rock guitars sound even more boisterous and the clean vocals get a larger presence. A bit more accessible? Maybe, but a logical evolution to the sound. Svalbard always had huge melodic hooks, and that's a huge part of the reason why their music is so impactful.

The other reason are its lyrics, and on the lyrical side though, the record is a bit more unified. That's part of the reason why I started the review that way, because the entire record (except one song) is centered around imposter syndrome and depression more generally. The latter is quite the usual for Svalbard's lyrics, but centering more of it around the proverbial "mask" you have to put on not to let on how awful you really feel is something that can be very hard-hitting, especially as someone who often feels like they have no place talking about music pretending to know anything about it, or feeling unable to properly open up about my feelings. There's nothing that has an impact as big as "Silent Restraint" did on the last record, but there are some lines that really stood out:

"It's weird to know I wasn't happy
That's just how I made it seem"

"Is that really the goal
To build a switch
To turn my tears off?
To block everything in favour of nothingness
To master how to live as loveless"

The one song that stands out lyrically is "Eternal Spirits", which acts more like a tribute to musicians in the scene that passed to soon and the legacy they left behind. Serena Cherry singles out Joey Jordison as the one she was thinking of but it's not limited to him. It's a nice sentiment, but one that sticks out in a record whose lyrical side seemed to purposefully only focus on the interior struggles, which might explain why all the more socio-political lyrics of songs like "What Was She Wearing?" or "Feminazi" or "Expect Equal Respect" from past albums are completely gone here. This is the one part where my cynicism in regards to the label is at its highest, because if the album was completely focused lyrically it would pass of as conceptual, but as is, it feels dangerously close to a compromise.

I hope Svalbard's future will put what remains of my cynicism to rest, seeing as to how they've managed to sharpen up their sound without compromise, I'm sure they can pull that off for every other aspect.