FEN
Ancient Sorrow

Deluxe 12" vinyl edition feat. three overlooked tracks.

For over a decade, FEN have steadily developed into one of the most intriguing bands within the UK black metal scene. Often bracketed within the post-black and "shoegaze" movements, the London trio’s sound is actually more unique to themselves – a startling paradox of searing and aggressive paradox within a progressively daring and ambient beauty. Starting out with a pastoral form of atmospheric black metal on 2009's acclaimed debut The Malediction Fields, the trio's sound has expanded and diversified considerably across five full-length albums to embrace a number of different elements all honed and synthesized into a distinctive, yet captivating, soundscape. In late 2015, the band recorded a three-track EP, entitled Stone and Sea, which was a deliberate hearken back to their older, more explosive, sound whilst retaining the maturity the English trio had developed across the years. The intention was to record something ‘for themselves’, to escape from the album cycle for a time and work on a self-contained piece.  

Recorded, produced and re-mastered specifically for vinyl by Greg Chandler (Esoteric, Lychgate, Grave Miasma, Fluisteraars), these tracks take the best aspects of post-rock and black metal and intertwine key elements of traditional folk to create a masterpiece laced with a definite touch of the "epic."
'Stone & Sea' is a tribute to the crumbling coastlines of Eastern England and the spirits that lie restless beneath the waters.

Recorded, produced and mastered specifically for vinyl by Greg Chandler at Priory Recording Studios in Birmingham, UK. www.prioryrecordingstudios.co.uk
Artwork by Immortalpict Illustration. immortalpictillustration facebook

FEN are climbing to a new artistic height by coming down to earth with their eighth full-length "Elemental Part One: Mourning Earth". The East Anglian trio has turned to their 'roots' in every sense, by distilling the true essence of what constitutes their sound through everything that they have learned and added in the last two decades. While the previous album, "Monuments to Absence" (2023), was deliberately arranged dense, fast and intense, FEN decided to leave breathing space on this album to allow more time for themes and ideas to exhale and unfurl. Of course, there is still much sonic aggression but channelled differently as large parts of "Mourning Earth" were recorded live to allow an organic nature to flow, and to permit the natural rhythms of the pieces to develop. Lyrically, FEN sum up their basic idea behind "Elemental Part One: Mourning Earth" in their own poetic words: "The morning mists clearing over the boggy expanses of the fens to reveal another grey, gloom-laden day of sorrow and regret. And at twilight, the slow, sad realisation that tomorrow promises only more of the same – tormented by the half-heard whispers of the spirits bound to the soils, our pain continues. And we can only endure." With "Elemental Part One: Mourning Earth", FEN have reached a new pinnacle in their exciting career and achieved a perfect balance between their black metal foundations and post-black metal innovations. FEN take their listener on a journey to grim bogs, languid waterways, and dismal fogs over bare rock – yet on the other side waits a sense of surcease to the endless existential ennui within.