While we like to imagine that we stand upon solid ground, the truth is that a churning maelstrom of molten metal and rock turns beneath the Earth's crust — just as our own emotions simmer beneath the skin. Fen channel this primordial force in their harsh and heaving new track, "Tectonic", accompanied by an allegorical video. The piece serves as the opening glimpse from the East Anglian post‑black metal stalwarts' upcoming album, Elemental Part One: Mourning Earth, set to emerge on 21 August via Prophecy Productions.

Fen's mastermind Frank "The Watcher" Allain writes: "As the primordial spheroid of the earth cooled, the crust shifted and solidified – the colossal movement of tectonic plates underpins all that we know. With 'Tectonic' we seek to explore this foundational ebb and flow, a brutal pulse that with one mere twitch, can wreak destruction upon the fragile leavings of our civilisation. And so does our inner self – a primordial, malformed kernel that lurks within, yearning to manifest as something with meaning, something with purpose. To know this can never happen – that true meaning and purpose will forever elude us – is a fundamental source of dissonance, bursting forth in volcanic rage and existential despair. This piece is one of the more direct songs within Mourning Earth; pulsing and surging with strident anger, heaving riffs and moments of pure, wordless anguish".

It is something of a paradox that Fen carve out a new artistic height by grounding themselves — quite literally — with their eighth full‑length, Elemental Part One: Mourning Earth. The East Anglian trio return to their roots in every sense, distilling the core of their sound through everything they have learned and absorbed across the last two decades.

Marking their twentieth "full" year, Fen set out to encapsulate the full expanse of their sonic identity. As a result, Mourning Earth becomes a marriage of their earliest and most recent releases, with Winter acting as a conceptual waypoint. Musically, the focus lies on emotive textures and cinematic soundscapes.

Where Monuments To Absence (2023) was deliberately dense, fast and intense, Fen now allow the material to breathe. Themes and ideas are given space to exhale, even as the album retains its share of sonic aggression — channelled differently, with large sections recorded live to preserve an unforced flowing character.

Fen's rhythm section intentionally moved away from the blast‑driven approach, instead embracing expressive rhythmic phrasing. The bass lines weave around the percussion, counterpointing with the guitar layers.

Lyrically, Fen summarise the core idea behind 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".

Mourning Earth forms the first half of a two‑album dual‑part saga, with the second part already well‑developed both musically and thematically. The Elemental cycle stands as the most ambitious project Fen have undertaken to date.

The colour palette of a Fen album has always offered a dead giveaway to its conceptual direction. The artwork for their eighth full‑length is dominated by the colour of green, underscoring its elemental, earth‑bound focus.

Formed in 2006, Fen released their debut full‑length, The Malediction Fields, in 2009 to widespread acclaim within the underground. Each subsequent release has expanded their musical range, sharpening the contours of their unmistakable sound.

With Elemental Part One: Mourning Earth, Fen reach a new pinnacle between their black metal foundations and their post‑black innovations. The trio guide the listener through grim bogs and across bare rock — yet beyond the desolation lies a faint sense of surcease from the endless churn of existential ennui. Link