UK post-hardcore band Svalbard releases final song »If We Could Still Be Saved«!

Photo credit: Georgia Penny

Bristol, UK based post-hardcore band Svalbard has released a brand new music video for their final single »If We Could Still Be Saved«.

Stream »If We Could Still Be Saved« now on all major digital platforms!

Courtesy of Nuclear Blast Records:

Svalbard have released their final song, »If We Could Still Be Saved«.

Revealed two days before the start of their final UK headline tour, Svalbard open up for the final time. On the track, members Serena Cherry, Liam Phelan, Mark Lilley and Matt Francis tear through 5 minutes of heart-wrenching shoegaze and pumelling post-metal, delivering sharp bitter bile and shimmering lush melodies in equal measure. They bow out with the raw, crushing honesty and ingenious musicianship that they’re cherished for.

Serena Cherry stated:

“We spend most of our lives unaware of finality. Blissfully oblivious to when those musical notes played will be our last.

So, when we can see an end in sight for something, it distorts the view. Like a funeral marked in your calendar a year in advance. Appreciation shows it’s sheepish face and whispers: ‘sorry I took so long.’

This is the last time we will release a song as Svalbard. Its a song not just heavy with riffs but heavy with sentiment, reflecting on our 15 years as a band. It’s also a parting gift to all of the people who have supported us.

Think of it as the metal version of »Goodbye« by the Spice Girls!”

Svalbard – Final UK Tour
w/ Cage Fight and Knife Bride
19 Nov – UK – Glasgow, Slay
20 Nov – UK – Manchester, Rebellion
21 Nov – UK – Newcastle, Think Tank
22 Nov – UK – Bristol, Thekla
23 Nov – UK – London, Oslo Hackney

About Svalbard:

You’d be forgiven for struggling to summarise the sound of Svalbard in a few words. Since forming in 2011, the band have had their hands in black metal, post-rock, d-beat, shoegaze, hardcore, and post-metal. Whilst their music stubbornly refuses to fit neatly into one genre, one word remains a fitting adjective for the British quartet: unique.

Svalbard spent their early years playing DIY shows, releasing 3 EPs and honing their sound, before eventually dropping their debut album »One Day All This Will End« in 2015. Since then, Svalbard gained the momentum of a runaway freight train, releasing two further albums whilst continuing to refine their vast array of musical influences; drawing from video game soundtracks, grindcore and dream pop all buried within a distorted yet dynamic sound.

But they’re not just heavy in the musical sense of the word. No one articulates the reality of mental illness as succinctly as Svalbard. With 2020’s »When I Die Will I Get Better« the band cut so deep both musically and lyrically that it raised the questions: where can Svalbard possibly go from here? How do you follow up an album created at the darkest point of your life?

If this were a Disney movie, this would be the point where we say that new record »The Weight Of The Mask« is the light piercing through the dark clouds, the hope returning into your heart, the promise of a happy ending… Well. It’s not. The depression did not simply go away. It clinged like a limpet, it morphed over lockdown after lockdown, it grew into a beast. But it’s a beast that Svalbard no longer fears. If the previous record was about facing your demons, then this album is about fighting them with everything you’ve got.

With a fourth album now under their belts, Svalbard are going from strength to strength – not just as one of the brightest sparks in metal and contemporaries of a burgeoning modern British metal scene, but as advocates for mental health.

Order »The Weight Of The Mask« HERE!

Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well