Svalbard: Sing What You Can’t Say

For over a decade, SVALBARD have refined their blend of shimmering blackgaze and emotive post-metal; 2020’s When I Die, Will I Get Better? was (rightly) heralded as the quartet’s finest hour, in its blunt discussions on sexism, misogyny and mental illness set to stirring melodies and vicious riffs. This year, its follow-up The Weight Of The Mask is set to arrive via their new home at Nuclear Blast. We caught up with her to talk about the album, its lyrics, and how, as far as society has come with discussion on mental health, it still has an incredibly long way to go in many ways.

When we do sit down, it’s mere days after a triumphant set at ArcTanGent festival that saw a packed out crowd for them; “that’s going to be etched into my brain forever,” she smiles, “there was such a warm atmosphere and one of the loudest crowds I’ve ever heard!” Playing both Faking It and Eternal Spirits from the new album, both songs saw huge responses from the gathering, in a festival that’s very much like a hometown show given its proximity to Bristol where they originally formed. “It’s one of those where you finish and walk on clouds for three days after,” Serena grins.

The album we’re talking about, though, is considerably darker; while its predecessor, the arresting When I Die, Will I Get Better? ended on Pearlescent, with sun shining the clouds, there’s none of that on The Weight Of The Mask. “There’s a huge contrast,” Serena agrees. “When I Die… was the light at the end of the tunnel, but The Weight Of The Mask is the tunnel at the end of the light.” Jettisoning the broader societal topics to focus purely on her own mental state, she sums it up as “about things not getting better. It’s fighting the depression until you’re exhausted and a hollow shell of yourself.”

Having always been open about her struggles with depression, The Weight Of The Mask takes it further again, offering some of their most cutting lyrics to date, though that wasn’t originally the intent. “When we started writing it, I had sworn to myself that I wouldn’t go deeper on this album,” she explains, before offering a wry smile. “But I can’t help myself, I can’t stop myself. It feels disingenuous to me to not pour every single emotion into that and not to use it as a vessel for expressing your deepest, darkest thoughts and feelings.”

It’s also quite a vulnerable position to be in, as Serena admits, since “people can read these lyrics and know some really dark things about me,” but SVALBARD have always been unflinchingly raw lyrically and “I don’t know how to stop myself from pouring these emotions into our songs.” Those emotions, particularly on The Weight Of The Mask, deal with masking depression and attempting to show the world a positive face when inside, everything is crumbling; “it’s acknowledging the masking, drawing those distinctions between the presentation of what you think people want to see and hear, and what’s actually real.”

A short biography Serena wrote alongside the album quotes a lyric from Tuomas Holopainen, mastermind behind NIGHTWISH; “sing what you can’t say”. “Every lyric, especially from Wishmaster, sum up how I feel,” she explains; “sing what you can’t say encapsulates the approach of this album of feeling you have nowhere to place this depression that haunts you. You’ve got no outlet for these negative emotions, nowhere that feels safe to really showcase what you’re going through. So I’ve just poured it all into the lyrics and music of this album.” Characteristically blunt, it also points at a much larger issue of how society sees mental illness.

“Even though society’s got a lot better about talking about mental health, I don’t think it has got better about talking about mental illness,” Serena muses. “When we talk about mental health, we’re almost framing it in a positive light.” The idea that someone can get better and has a healing aspect to it is at odds with the realities of mental illness, as she has first-hand experience of, something obvious from the lyrics to songs like Lights Out, in which she screams “I am too depressed to show you how depressed I am” or the equally devastating, “no one can tell the light inside me is out / I’m screaming for help, while I’m muting myself”.

As good as society is at using the right words, but talking about mental illness and talking about what’s beneath is something that’s very much an issue. “The amount of times I’ve been told to cheer up, or ‘oh you’re so negative’…” she trails off. “Sometimes it’s been, oh we’re going to talk about Serena and her depression, but don’t worry she’s not a downer. Where does this word downer come from anyway? That shouldn’t be an insult, and the fact that it is, says how much more progress we need to make.”

She likens the mask to a moment in The Simpsons, a moment of almost-levity that still bears a terrible weight. “Lisa is in Marge’s car,” she begins, “telling her how she feels really sad, but Marge says put on a smile, and soon your smile will be all you know.” The pressure to act in a certain way and mask to for the acceptance of others is a struggle, and one that carries a fear for her. “I feel if I were my true depressed self around people, I would not be accepted. That’s really the crux of the album.”

It ties in to closer To Wilt Beneath The Weight, whereby amidst shimmering melodies and beautiful blackgaze, a raw nerve glistens as it addresses the idea that, after masking for so long, it becomes too much to bear. “The mask is a wall that separates you from the rest of the world, it’s isolating you, and bearing down on you to a breaking point. It’s a flower being crushed beneath the mask.”

Lyrically, the songs are devastatingly honest and while Serena admits she doesn’t know how else to write lyrics, she confides that “there is a fear that my lyrics trap me in a cycle of pain.” It’s a biting assessment, but one she offers a counterpoint to immediately; “it’s a tightrope I’m walking, where the other side is the power of resonance, where I’m wanting to write lyrics that will sit with people when they’re feeling their worst… they won’t tell you to cheer up or that it’ll be okay. They go, yeah it is shit. Because when I’m really struggling, that’s what I seek out.”

That power of resonance and how deeply their lyrics touch, as devastating as they are not only to write but, as Serena admits, to perform sometimes when she’s re-experiencing something she wrote about in the past, is ultimately not only to help herself, but others that hear them, to help them in their hours of need and give them solace. “If anything can come from struggling so much with depression, it’s creating music about it that will make you feel someone’s there with you, and will hopefully make people who suffer it feel less alone.”

The Weight Of The Mask is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.

Like SVALBARD on Facebook.