Fen – Of Losing Interest (2012)

After blowing us away with their excellent debut release “Trails Out of Gloom”, Fen (the Progressive Rock/Metal one) returns with “Of Losing Interest”, a release that while heavier in nature it failed to captivate us as much as their previous release. With nine tracks of well-crafted Progressive Rock/Metal, this release is by no means bad, it just feels too straightforward and lacking the magic that “Trails out of Gloom” had in every track.

The opener “Riddled” is a quintessential Prog piece that sounds a bit too predictable and linear in our opinion. There are a few cool guitar sections and the bass guitar line is pretty solid, but the song as a hole seems lacking some creativity. Things pick up a couple of times during the tracks “Of Losing Interest”, “Nice for Three Days”, and “A Long Line”, with a few brilliant guitar sections and tight percussions, but nothing extremely impressive. We are kind of turned off that we are almost half-way through the release and haven’t found anything that really sticks in our head.

One thing we noted so far is that the guitars in this release sound very raw, maybe this is intentional but it sounds weird for a Prog release, since they are usually very polished and crystal clear sounding. The first song we liked is the catchy “The Glove”, a track that gave us a Pain of Salvation vibe, and features excellent guitar work. The magic continues with the excellent “Drunken Relief” and its brilliant drum patterns. Changing the pace with “Light Up The End”, the band delivers a solid track that nicely builds up over time and has some excellent solos paired with very dramatic vocals.

Keeping up with the ‘melancholic mood’, “Pilot Plant” is another excellent track that has a very moody nature and is very well crafted and filled with interesting little details. The vocals again shine through the music and the ballad-esque nature to the song makes it quite unique and enjoyable. The closer “Snake Path” returns a bit to the dull-side again, especially the whiny early 2000’s vocals that just don’t seem to fit Progressive Music that much.

Overall, while we are a bit disappointed with how “Of Losing Interest” turned out, there are still plenty of decent songs to make this release worth your time. If you never heard of the first record, then this album is a pretty solid Progressive Metal/Rock release, if you have very high hopes after listening to “Trails Out of Gloom”, you better lower those expectations a bit and approach this release with caution.

Release: August 14th, 2012

Genre: Progressive Metal

Country: Canada