After my recent article on the single ‘Bodies’ by Cwfen, I am very honoured that I was contacted by the band and sent a preview of the new album ‘Sorrow’ for my listening pleasure.

Cwfen are melancholy through and through, with a most beautiful gothic-meets-grunge affair, whilst doom and black metal linger in the corners, ready to engulf proceedings. The slow pace allows you to take in every note of all you hear, with a brooding sense of danger lurking.

Image Credit: Cwfen Band

There’s a raw power that makes you feel the connection to the music, touching your soul before it’s taken away to be cursed.

After an eerie intro, we are met with the one-two combo of singles ‘Bodies’ and ‘Wolfsbane’, setting the tone for the ritual we are here to experience.

Image Credit: Cwfen / Bandcamp

Also included on the album, is the single ‘Reliks’, released last year along with colossal song ‘Penance’, where things start to get a tiny bit spicier, as those black metal influences begin to make their way in to the tracks more frequently.

It adds a venom-filled bite to the proceedings. Final track ‘Rite‘ is a perfectly heavy way to end this album, where Cwfen display all their strongest of feelings through the power of music to end this ritual.

Through the voice of Agnes Alder, the album takes dark turns, which only increases as we delve further in. The way her raw passion and emotion set the scene of each track is infectious.

Image Credit: Cwfen Band

The melodic guitar tone has an inherently 80’s and 90’s zen about it, bringing to mind the sound of Killing Joke, before powering in to slow, heavy, destroying riffs, the kind Type O Negative were so good at. 

While most focus is on the vocals and guitars throughout the album, when you pay attention to the drumming, you quickly realise that they provide the perfect synchronicity to bring everything together as one.

In those heavier moments, those drums get a proper lashing, and I hope they’re looking for compensation.

We begin this album teetering on the edge of the shadows, and by the end, we are engulfed in the darkness, with no way of finding our way back to the light. This wonderfully bleak journey is just the beginning for Cwfen.

I would like to say a big thank you to those lovely folk in Cwfen for allowing me access to the album early out of the kindness of their (black) heart.

New album ‘Sorrows’ is released 30th May 2025 and it deserves your attention.