Fen Creatures is the fifth album by Cambridge based folk rock band Fuzzy Lights who are Rachel Watkins, Xavier Watkins, Chris Rogers, Daniel Carney, Mark Blay and special guest backing vocalist Naomi Randall.
The album opens with the main single Greenteeth that sounds like an affliction you might suffer from with some really bad drug habits, only this is a classic folk song that is being psychedelicized with the Greenteeth being found deep in the fens, luring children into peril beneath the willow roots, raging guitar freakout like the screams just before you disappear beneath the murky waters.
The albums title song Fen Creatures opens like a folk-rock epic somewhere between Circulus and Rasputina, the viola has echoes of John Cale at his velveteen heights. However, the vocals are far more Fairport Convention for this dark tale of the spirits lurking within the fens.
War Ditches revolves around a military snare beat, for this tale of the dread and sorrow caused by those digging and fighting in those War Ditches, ghosts of the fallen never quite leaving the battlefield echoing down through time, lingering reminders of the dread of war symbolized by the dark wall of guitars and violas creating the miasma of battle.
The Promise has a slow ambient atmospheric intro to this exploration of the precarious nature of fen life, with rising waters threatening to subsume the fens for good, a victim of climate change. Fables Of Beauty is a calm oasis of flickered drums and spectral guitar for the slow tale to unfold, baleful Viola solo is acoustic adding to the sense of calm serenity that comes across.
Another Eden may be possible, but only if we change our ways and address the climate crisis, the birds and fenland creatures already know things have changed, can the beast ever be re-captured with the aid of frazzled psychedelics and a slow plodding beat, allowing the guitars to go all Crazy Horse bucking against the prevailing winds.
The album closes with Descent taking us deep into the maelstrom of a dark distended repeating guitar figure, fighting against deaths embrace, one last colossal musical freakout shows the way out of the despair and the bottom of the Descent.
Find out more at https://fuzzylights.bandcamp.com/album/fen-creatures https://linktr.ee/fuzzylights https://www.facebook.com/fuzzylights https://www.instagram.com/fuzzysnaps/
