VLTIMAS FEN/DE PROFUNDIS UNDERWORLD, LONDON
headliners for choosing local supports, but it does mean that ’s 200th gig doesn’t get quite the sense of occasion it deserves. Not only is the venue short of have also undergone a gradual stylistic shift over the years, and if their earlier blackgaze elements were always far better informed than their peers, they’ve since found richly atmospheric pastures beyond. Both forlorn and fiery, Fen’s music always exists in a fertile limbo between ecological/emotional ruin and rebirth, their windswept dynamics fluctuating in mood as if they were a hyper-sensitive barometer. At times, when the riffs reach their most lustrous pitch, channelling the 4AD Records late-80s roster, they threaten to tip over into sheer heady delirium, it’s just the often ropey clean vocal harmonies that bring them down to earth, but few black metal bands are so abundant with potential right now.
