Svalbard Announce New Album 'The Weight Of The Mask'

English post-hardcore outfit Svalbard have revealed details surrounding their new album, The Weight Of The Mask, and dropped the single Faking It. You can watch the striking music video below.

Their fourth album, the new release follows 2020’s When I Die, Will I Get Better? Svalbard will release The Weight Of The Mask via Nuclear Blast Records on Friday, 6 October.

“If the previous record was about facing your demons, then The Weight Of The Mask is about fighting them with everything you've got,” vocalist Serena Cherry said in a statement. “You can literally hear the depression transform into aggression in these songs.

“The Weight Of The Mask was admittedly a challenging album to make because we cut so deep this time around; it was a painful but ultimately cathartic process. This album is the sound of two years’ worth of internal darkness boiling away inside and then finally being unleashed.”

On the new single, Cherry added, “Faking It is a song about feeling deprived of meaningful human connection due to depression acting like a wall that shuts you off from others. It addresses the ways in which those who suffer with depression can feel guilted into putting on a happy mask.

“The lyrics are a reflection on happiness as a social obligation and how scarily good you can become at deceiving everyone around you into thinking that you're fine when you're not. With Faking It, we are both acknowledging the pressure for forced positivity, the fear that people won't like you if you're sad, and also questioning where the root of this intolerance towards depression lies.”

On the music video, she concluded, “This video leans on deliberately obvious binary oppositions to hammer home the message of the song. We have the glossy smiling shots, filmed in the fakest place we could find: The Selfie Factory, mixed with dark, expressive performance footage that represents the internal struggle within.”

Faking It is the first track on The Weight Of The Mask. Immediately following is Eternal Spirits, which the band dropped earlier this year in tribute to Slipknot’s Joey Jordison, who passed away in his sleep in July 2021.

Svalbard's music - this form of emotional music dolled up into hardcore/metal - really means something, with the UK group saying something essential as loud as they bloody well can.

Cherry said about their previously released single, “On a more personal level, Joey Jordison was the person who inspired me to pick up an instrument. I started learning drums when I was 12 years old because of the energy and passion he exuded from his playing.

“When I listened to his drumming, every hit gave me a surge of motivation. His creative spark lit a fire within me that will never be extinguished. I'd like to dedicate Eternal Spirits to his memory.”

You can pre-order or pre-save The Weight Of The Mask here, with an Australian store to buy from coming soon.