Cambridge's acclaimed psych-folk quintet Fuzzy Lights play The Bear Club for the first time having recently put out their fifth album 'Fen Creatures' to huge acclaim.
Following 2021's critically lauded 'Burials', the band have created their most conceptually ambitious work to date - a meditation on environmental crisis that uses the folklore and history of East Anglia as a lens to examine humanity's fractured relationship with the natural world. Their sound is an awesome amalgamation of folk and death metal based heavily around the use of drone guitar and distorted violins - a bit John Cale in Velvet Underground and a bit Warrren Ellis in the Bad Seeds - with the purity of the lead singer’s vocals adding to the unsettling quality of their music.
Where 'Burials' explored personal trauma and environmental collapse, 'Fen Creatures' expands this vision into something far more sweeping and interconnected. The album operates across multiple historical timelines, from Iron Age hill forts to medieval plague houses, from Byron's Romantic-era environmental warnings to the immediate threat of rising sea levels, creating a temporal tapestry that weaves ancient stories with contemporary concerns. The album calls attention to environmental change while exploring how folklore ties to the landscape and our connection to our ancestors.
Musically, the quintet, Rachel Watkins (vocals/violin), Xavier Watkins (guitar/electronics), Chris Rogers (guitar), Daniel Carney (bass), and Mark Blay (drums), have pushed deeper into experimental drone territories while maintaining the crystalline folk sensibilities that have become their signature. The result is their most atmospheric and immersive work to date, with vast sonic landscapes that mirror the fenland geography they're documenting.
“They replace folk music’s wispy nostalgia with something much more primal…Superb stuff.”
“Less motorik, less kosmische, there are darker tropes now afoot…”
Doors 7pm / Music 8pm / Tickets £12 (£8 for members)
All seating/tables are first-come, first-served.