Saturday 5 January 2013

FEN - DUSTWALKER - Album Review


Fen is a Post-Black Metal Band from London, UK

The members are:

Grungyn - bass, cries
Derwydd - drums
The Watcher - voices, strings and woe

Fen is a superb metal band who are very hard to categorize. Some people might class them as a Post-Black Metal band as they blend Post-Rock with Black Metal but there is so much more to Fen than that.

They incorporate elements of Folk, Ambient and Doom Meta to show you how creative they are. Fen have released two superb albums which has won them a very loyal following amongst the extreme metal crowd. Well two years later Fen are back with quite possibly their most creative and best work to date – Dustwalker – is a 60 minute ride through the most punishing trek of human emotions that music is quite capable of doing.

Nothing will prepare you for the journey that Dustwalker will take you on. It feels more like an epic cinematic journey through the human psyche. It is full of brutal emotional charged riffs with pulsating vocals to match.

Fen orchestrate the brutal parts of the album brilliantly well with the more subtle clean ambient based tracks and there is many jaw-dropping moments when you think – how did they come up this song or riff. One minute you could be head banging away to your hearts content to a storming heavy riff and then Fen pull you from your comfort zone by adding a superb ambient post-rock vibe that take the album onto another emotional level altogether.

Fen have pulled out all the stops for this album. It is dark, creepy, original, loud, angry, brutal, and beautiful and overall it is a majestic masterpiece of extreme metal.

I have not stopped listening to it since the kind people at Aural Music sent me a copy mid-December. The 7 tracks are all wonderfully put together. I have a very hard time stating which one is my favourite as it changes every time I listen to it. The album does have its fair share of epic tracks as four of them run past the 10-minute mark.

If I was asked to choose a fave track then it will have to be the 13-minute epic – Walking The CrowPath – as it shows what Dustwalker is all about. Highly Emotional riffs with intense and highly original vocals to match. This album feels truly alive and nothing comes close when the album is in full flow.

Fen have delivered a truly astonishing album regardless of any genre. An absolute masterpiece that I urge you all to check out now.

Brilliant and a future classic in the making. Highly Recommended.

You can buy Dustwalker from all good stockists on Code 666/Aural Music from Jan 21st 2013.

Check out this excellent band below

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