Svalbard : "the Weight of the Mask"

This British band has graced the top ten hardcore albums of the year twice, in 2020 and 2018. Now with their first album for Nuclear Blast, things have continued to change for the band.  Their hard-core side is fading into the past, as the band lashes out with a simmering black metal feel. Sure there is a crusty element to what is going on, and some of the accents are hard-core influenced. The songs race at a faster and more furious tempo. It's explosive, not as dark or cold sounding  Toward the end of the second song things get into more of a deliberate stomp to create more of a breakdown feel.  Some of the atmospheric elements like the vocals of  Serena Cherry. This album is not as shoe gazing, there are more blast beats, and it finds them on the black metal side of things perhaps more than hardcore. Though the barked gang chorus feel to the vocals at times tips the balance the other way as well. 

While Lewis Johns is still producing these guys, there is a marked difference in how they captured the sounds, as well as how things are mixed. The guitars sound brighter and use fewer effects.. Cherry's spoken word vocals going into the more introspective "November" prove to be effective and the dynamic turn this album needed. I find myself having to give this one multiple listens to fully absorb what is going on here. Things are more melodic and you can not fault the band for it as there is no mistaking how they have grown as songwriters. Mental health is a common theme on this album "Lights Out" has the powerful line "I am too depressed to show you / how depressed I really am " . This is a heavier topic than any color-by-numbers obligatory attempt to be esoteric other bands try to fool you with. 

"How to Swim Down" is more of a shoe-gazing affair, though handled really well. They do not follow the typical formula for this sort of thing, owing little to the bands you might assume to be their influences in this regard.  The brisk aggression of "Be My Tomb" does less to set them apart and it could be one of many modern black metal bands. "Pillar in the Sand" hovers under clouds

until the stormy sound of depression being turned into to form violence bubbles up. On the last song they race off toward oblivion. I guess the last song is more blackened hardcore, there is some great nuanced passages of guitar work on this one. I will give this album a 9.5, which edges out the previous albums, the most tangible thing I can attribute this to is the raw honesty of the lyrics forces the music to bring an equally impassioned performance.