It's Hard to Have Hope is the second studio album by British post-hardcore band Svalbard, released on 25 May 2018 by Holy Roar Records. The album was recorded in September 2017 at The Ranch Production House in Southampton with producer Lewis Johns. Primarily displaying a post-hardcore and post-metal sound, it expands on the heaviness and melodic tendencies of their debut album One Day All This Will End (2015). Its lyrics, bearing a heavy feminist influence, address various social and political topics including unpaid internships, revenge porn, abortion, animal welfare, sexual assault and long-term illness. It was Svalbard's only album with bassist Adam Parrish.
It's Hard to Have Hope received very positive reviews from critics, who praised its messages and musical growth. The album was listed as one of 2018's best albums by Decibel, Kerrang! and Vice. Throughout 2018 and 2019, Svalbard supported its release with tours of the United Kingdom and Europe, as well as their first ever tour of Japan.
Background and recording
Following the release of their debut album One Day All This Will End (2015), Svalbard went through a period of internal turmoil, marked by the departure of their bassist and the end of Serena Cherry and Liam Phelan's romantic relationship of seven years; both members would also go through their own long-term health struggles.
As a result of this turmoil, Svalbard approached the writing of It's Hard to Have Hope as if it was going to be their final album, giving them the chance to be "creatively fearless" with their compositions and lyrics. The band worked together on its music first, with Cherry writing its lyrics later on. They would regroup in September 2017 to record the album at The Ranch Production House in Southampton with producer Lewis Johns. It was mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege Mastering in January 2018.
Composition and lyrics
Overview
It's Hard to Have Hope has been described as post-hardcore. and post-metal. It has also been described as featuring elements of black metal, shoegaze, post-rock and melodic hardcore. According to Kerrang!, the album's songs are established on a foundation composed of "surging riffs and a sense of constant forward momentum that’s as infused with the spirit of punk rock as it is the thunderous power of metal". Expanding on the heavy and melodic tendencies of One Day All This Will End, they feature fast drumbeats, melodic, tremolo-heavy guitar lines and a balance of clean singing and screamed vocals.
The album's lyrics cover a variety of social and political topics, bearing a heavy feminist influence. Cherry wrote the lyrics in a direct and confrontational manner, lacking any metaphoric and poetic ambiguity, "so a six-year-old could read the words and know exactly what I'm talking about and where I stand on [the] issues [addressed]". Cherry credited her experience writing for Terrorizer around the time of album's writing for inspiring its direct tone, to draw a contrast against to the "obscured" and "vague" lyrics of the bands she interviewed for the magazine. She also credited journalist Caitlin Moran for "[inspiring] me to be much more open and direct about being a feminist [...] Through reading her work, I felt encouraged not to hold back my thoughts and feelings, and to put them into songs."
In a 2018 interview with Blocland, Cherry described her approach of writing the album's lyrics:
Whatever pissed me off that day, I wrote about it [. . .] Once I adopted this approach of just essentially focusing on one target per song then venting all my rage towards it, the lyrics came so quickly and naturally this time. I find I can’t really switch off my socio-political side, so it felt like the lyrical content was just bubbling away inside me, waiting to be released! It was an extremely cathartic process, as I didn’t really sit there refining my words or trying to write something that sounds mysterious.