Svalbard are a band from Bristol, England who make music that can best be described as titanic. Their third album When I Die, Will I Get Better? finds blissful harmony between the misty beauty of post-rock, the sweeping vigor of black metal, and the visceral anger of post-hardcore. The quartet, led by the spectacular guitarist/vocalist Serena Cherry, have been refining this sound for the better part of a decade, but their earlier material was more entrenched in the hardcore multiverse: blending elements of crust and melodic hardcore that was akin to legends like Converge and Modern Life Is War. Their previous record, 2018’s It’s Hard to Have Hope formally established the heavenly, almost shoegaze direction their melodies can take, but When I Die, Will I Get Better? feels like the true completion of their sonic puzzle.
The record’s greatest strength, which doubles as Svalbard’s calling card, is that they’re not merely mashing these myriad metallic sensibilities together or whipping between them at dizzying speed. Rather, on a song like "Throw Your Heart Away," they’re able to evoke breathless beauty and forceful rage simultaneously. Their music is at once multidimensional and cohesive, a sound that recalls the progressive hardcore of their UK peers in Ithaca, the majestic metalcore of August Burns Red, and the galloping blackgaze of Deafheaven without ever coming close to imitation. From the epic sweeps of "Click Bait" and the way the moody "What Was She Wearing?" builds into a driving, ferocious crunch, the record provides something for heavy hardcore brutes and post-metal nerds alike.
Perhaps their older music had a little more punkish urgency to it, but Svalbard always sounded like they were climbing to the peak at where When I Die stands. Few other contemporaries have enjoyed such a view. © Eli Enis/Qobuz