Fen: Trails Out of Gloom Review

Trails Out of Gloom is a brooding record that meshes the lush with the heavy, the serene with the chilling and the light with the dark. Somehow Fen manages to traverse through the seemingly opposite terrains with incredible success. Fen is an alternative/heavy metal band that often veers into progressive rock territories likening them to the sounds of Porcupine Tree and Opeth. Unlike countless other bands in the same genre, Fen manages to always stay centered, never losing themselves to moments of self-indulgence or falling victim to being overly obscure.

Fen’s musical direction is consistently focused and powerful, crafting songs like a story with beginnings, middles and ends, and as one would expect with any great story, the ending is always a dramatic climax. Fantastic melodies pour out of each and every song, it won’t take long until the choruses on tracks like “Find That One” and “Queen of the Mountain” will be replaying in your head.

The musicianship is top notch whether it be the electric guitar solos, finger picked acoustic guitar passages, battering drums or vocals that crossover into so many ranges that one has to wonder whether it’s the same singer throughout the album. Vocalist/Guitarist Doug Harrison’s voice is something special, he hits high falsetto notes similar to that of Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother with relative ease and soothes with deep lower ranges and nails every note in-between, all the while never sounding the least bit pretentious.

Trails Out of Gloom is absolutely phenomenal, even with around seven albums in my queue to review, I still don’t want to take this album out of my stereo.

Grade: A