The first Australian tour by England’s Svalbard came to a close in Melbourne on a Sunday night at Howler in Brunswick. Having been to the Sydney show I was interested to see comparisons between each show.
Encierro kicked things off with their take on the crust sound. It seems the organisers scoured the lands to find some powerful female fronted bands as part of the support acts and Encierro were no exception. A guttural scream came from behind a mask, with fist raised regularly throughout the set, which included tracks from this years Doomsday Still Bleeds Red album.
It was only the powerful voice setting the tone, the band, which looked far too cool to be in a crust band, weaved interesting interludes throughout the music before providing chaotic backgrounds to those previously mentioned powerful screams.
This was my first time hearing about Encierro, but I will keep my eye on their work in the future.
In Throes followed up, with the four fellows bringing their epic soundscapes from Hobart to join the festivities. The band only played their first show late last year but seems to have the accomplished sound of a band playing together for years. I was particularly impressed when guitarist and main singer Mitchell was joined by Sam for a double shot of shouted intensity. Another band to keep an eye on. You can see the video to their recent single “Morningstar” online for a first point of view.
Like the rest of the tour, RUN was providing main support for Svalbard. On this evening they brought a high energy set, with Lochlan Watt bouncing from place to place throughout. Their stage show could upstage many an international act, with their recent season based songs impressing. These will be released on an EP shortly.
The band ploughed through some technical difficulties, adding in some of their more frenetic songs before finishing up with “Everyone’s Cancelled, Everything’s Cancer”. To be standing there in front of the stage after brain surgery is an impressive achievement. Compared to Sydney there was a bit more excitement in the crowd and that carried through to the main event of the evening, Svalbard.
With the whirlwind tour coming to a close after four days, I was interested to see how the band would hold up, having been to Perth, Sydney and Brisbane without any rest days following on from shows in Japan prior to that.
In terms of energy, they were still full of energy, hair flailing around and words being screamed at full volume. What didn’t hold up as well were some of the more melodic parts, with some being left in place of powerful instrumental breaks and some, such as “Eternal Spirits” being screamed instead.
You could see during the singing part of “Throw Your Heart Away” a discomfort for Serena Cherry and it was impressive to see the band power through the set. Close to the end of the set it was revealed that it was Liam Phelan’s birthday and the crowd was encouraged to sing him a happy birthday. Aside from that interlude, the set was very similar to Sydney, mixing a range of songs from across their albums, delving back with “Greyscale” as the encore.
Once again the unleashing of “Faking It” followed up by “Lights Out”, both from recent album The Weight of the Mask was where things really picked up in the set. Similarly to the Sydney show, there were a handful of people screaming along to the words, with Serena once again showing her appreciation to the Australian crowds and promising they will be back.
I’m sure there will be many more people in the crowd in a follow up visit. The band seemed to win over some new fans in the Melbourne venue, with the crowd providing a strong energy as they played. With various festival organisers considering their upcoming lineups, I’m sure Svalbard would fit right in on something like a Good Things or Knotfest.
With the physical mask not stopping a strong delivery from Encierro, this metaphorical weight of the mask did not stop the action from Svalbard. I was glad to be able to see a couple of shows on this tour and I hope to see the band again sometime soon.
Review by Daniel Boyle
