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. If this were a Disney movie, this would be the point where we say that 2023 album '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.