SVALBARD

Bristol’s Svalbard have become one of the most vital voices in modern heavy music, a band where rage and vulnerability, beauty and brutality coexist without contradiction. Formed in 2011, they weave post-hardcore, blackgaze, and atmospheric post-metal into a sound that is both urgently political and deeply personal. Across albums including One Day All This Will End (2015), It’s Hard to Have Hope (2018), and their latest full-length The Weight of the Mask (2023), they explore identity, grief, misogyny, and survival – refusing to look away from the world’s harshness, yet always reaching for light.

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Fronted by Serena Cherry’s unmistakable presence – a voice that flips between raw scream and aching melody – Svalbard channel lived experience into songs that feel like both wound and weapon. Shimmering tremolo guitars collide with crushing low end, and drums surge like a heartbeat in freefall. Their music balances the visceral with the poetic: razor-edged one moment, achingly melodic the next – uniting inner and outer battles into something luminous, defiant, and profoundly human.

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WHAT TO EXPECT

‍A Svalbard show feels like standing in the storm and finding a hand to hold. Expect blistering surges of sound, breath-snatching dynamics, and passages that feel like exhaling after years of holding it in. From the first note, intensity floods the room – sharp, melodic and fiercely human. One moment blast-driven fury; the next, a gaze-lifted swell of hope. Their performance is both rallying and intimate; a place where anger becomes momentum, hurt becomes solidarity, and the room leaves feeling a little lighter, together.