- Country: United Kingdom
- Style: Atmospheric / post-black metal
- Label: Prophecy Productions
- Release date: 21 August 2026
There is a particular kind of grey that only exists over flat, wet land. Fen have spent twenty years turning that grey into sound, taking their name and their mood from the marshes and waterways of eastern England, and Elemental Part One: Mourning Earth, their eighth album, may be the purest expression of it yet.
After the dense, fast and furious Monuments to Absence in 2023, the trio deliberately left room to breathe this time. Large parts of the album were recorded live, and you can hear it: the songs swell and recede like tides, never rushed, letting ideas unfold in their own time. Six tracks, forty-seven minutes, each named after a landscape feature, from the cold opening of “Glacier” to the long, sorrowful walk of “Moor”.
The Watcher’s guitar work is the thread through it all, shimmering and melodic even when the blast beats come crashing in, and his voice moves from dry, withered rasps to clean, wistful singing that hangs in the air like mist over a bog. “Massif” begins with a gentle acoustic half before erupting into something far angrier, while “Abyssal Plain”, the shortest song here, shapeshifts restlessly from one mood to the next.
The lyrics sit in the same bleak place as the music: morning mists over the fens, spirits whispering from the soil, a slow acceptance that tomorrow will bring more of the same. It could be suffocating, but the melodies keep offering small glimpses of light through the clouds.
As the first half of a two-part work, it inevitably leaves you waiting for the rest of the story. But on its own terms, this is Fen at their most focused and most beautiful. Walk out into the fog and listen.
Best tracks:
Glacier
Massif
Abyssal Plain
Moor
Author’s rating: 8.5/10
