The UK’s Fen started off as the former, with 2009’s Agalloch-like release The Malediction Fields. And now they’ve metamorphosed into the latter with their newest, Epoch. Maybe it’s a British thing – it’s where shoegaze originated with seminal shoegaze acts (and precursors) like Slowdive, Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine.  Regardless of what motivated the shift in Fen‘s sound, I think it’s definitely a welcome evolution, as Epoch is one of the most successful examples to date for this new ‘blackgaze’ genre.

While black metal usually scrambles forward with jagged guitars and equally frantic drumming, here the aggression is mostly handled by the drums and vocals alone, leaving the guitars to melt into the keyboards, creating a lush, amorphous atmosphere. Couple that with Fen’s long, progressive songwriting, and you have an album full of immersive, haunting epics with a unique sound and character.

“Ghost of the Flood” explodes like a summer lightning storm, but one that’s diffused and blown-out through a curtain of misting rain, so that the overall effect is one of both savage and shimmering violence. The follow-up, “The Gibbet Elms,” reverses the effect – it’s a largely slower and more relaxed song, but it’s shredded by harsh, screamed vocals. Sometimes the blurring is even handled by song structure. “Half-Light Eternal” seems like it’s the album’s one classic shoegaze track (the clean vocals are much improved from Malediction, but still a touch too tremulous), but by its midpoint it too explodes into fury.

In fact, given the strength of these various sonic and structural juxtapositions, I’d say the album’s most furious moments are sometimes also their weakest and most unnecessary. “Carrier of Echoes” piles keyboard bloom atop a post-punk bassline for its first few minutes, but when the song cranks to a traditional black metal bash-fest, the riffs lose their clarity and focus. “Of Wilderness and Ruin” also has some problems when the drumming takes over and explodes into a frantic spasm – it’s simply too untamed and imprecise compared to the decadent ebb and flow that Fen has mastered on the rest of the album. I simply don’t think Fen needs these violent moments anymore, because the rest of the texture and experience here is so compelling.

It’s still amazing to me that these two odd bedfellows – black metal and shoegaze – managed to mate and create such interesting results in the first place. However, so far it seems like many bands – Alcest included – have been content to merely alternate between darkness and light, raging one moment and soothing the next. Epoch takes everything to the next level by successfully isolating and then blending the key elements of both genres in a balanced and organic way. And that’s why, despite a few jarring missteps, Epoch is a really fascinating evolution – not just for Fen, but for this new blackgaze genre in general.

Opener “Exile’s Journey” is aptly named, as it – and then rest of the lengthy album that follows – takes you on an extended trek that frequently blends and shifts between cacophony and contemplation. You’ll catch the obvious nods to Agalloch‘s Pale Folklore with the first barren notes of Exile. Then the song explodes into a clatter of frenetic black metal, as if rushing through a dense, choking tangle of thorns that tear at the skin. Soon after, it emerges into a quiet glade, joined by soaring, tasteful synths and slowing to a more stately pace. By the time warm acoustics and somber clean vocals join in, you should be ready and centered for the long journey ahead.

“A Witness to the Passing of Aeons” balances these moods just as ably, starting off in cramped, whispery gloom before ascending to a more gorgeous and stirring vista. Songwriting is wonderfully fluid and surprising, even crescendoing to a lovely melodic lead in its closing minutes. Unlike other dual-natured bands, Fen doesn’t just limit the rasped vocals to the harsher moments and keep the clean vocals to the more solemn ones – both are interchangeable, with the black vocals adding gravity and danger even as the melodies brighten and blossom.

In many ways, this starts to come off like black metal shoegazer, somewhere between Drudkh and Cocteau Twins. “Colossal Voids,” with its predominant clean vocals and shimmering guitars, makes this comparison even more apparent, as it comes off like countrymates Slowdive. By song’s end, though, the pounding drums and black metal have come crashing back in, and it seems that the song starts to pull itself apart. The clean vocals here start to suffer as well, coming off as tremulous and not confident enough, but that’s really the only spot on the album where this stood out.

The rest of The Malediction Fields offers one excellent track after another, with “The Warren’s” Isis-like opening minutes and the whole of “Lashed by Storm” being two standouts. The closing minutes of “Bereft” are also memorable in that Fen starts flirting with overtly bright, sunny-sounding notes that still fall shy of being ‘happy.’ They’re more hopeful, like shafts of light penetrating to the murk below, and if this sounds like blasphemy to you black metal purists, you might have to get used to it. I’ve been hearing this sort of willingness to push the light-and-shade dynamic more and more these days, showing up in recent efforts from Alcest, Svarti Loghin and Dekadent. Of course, even Burzum had its lovely moments way back when (parts of “Tomhet” and “Dunkelheit”), so perhaps this renaissance of lighter melody in black soil is just those seeds taking root.

The Malediction Fields will certainly take a few listens to sink into, but it’s well worth the time. Highly recommended for fans of the above-mentioned bands as well as Wolves in the Throne Room and the new Blut Aus Nord.