Svalbard Announce New Album The Weight of the Mask, Stream “Faking It”
UK post-metal crew Svalbard are back with a brand new single, “Faking It,” along with the announcement of a new album. The Weight of the Mask is slated for release on October 6 via Nuclear Blast. The new song is an honest look at dealing with depression and feeling like you’re faking your emotions to make it through the day, a feeling the music matches with its soaring melodies and emotive vocals.
Says frontwoman Serena Cherry about the new album:
“If the previous record was about facing your demons, then The Weight of The Mask is about fighting them with everything you’ve got. 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.
“‘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.”
Speaking on the video for “Faking It,” she added:
“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.”
You can watch the video for “Faking It” and see the new album info below.
The Weight Of The Mask – tracklist:
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
