“Wolfsbane” is four minutes into Sorrows when it drops the line that tells you exactly what kind of band Cwfen are: “The men have had a thousand years to make us quiet wives / Tonight, I’ll be the king.” It’s not subtle, and it’s not trying to be. Singer and rhythm guitarist Agnes Alder delivers it like a declaration rather than a lyric, the guitar building beneath it with the kind of controlled ferocity that the best doom bands use to make you feel the weight of what’s being said.
Cwfen, pronounced “Coven,” from the Old English, emerged from Glasgow’s underground scene only a couple of years before releasing this debut, but Sorrows sounds like the work of a band that has been doing this for much longer. The album opens with “Fragment I,” a brief acoustic intro that dissolves almost immediately into “Bodies,” which was one of the self-recorded demos that built their early fanbase. Here it’s fully realized: the production by Kevin Hare opens up the low end, mastering by James Plotkin gives the record an uncommon clarity without sacrificing weight, and Alder’s vocals, which move between a whisper and a genuinely ferocious roar, sit right where they need to be in the mix.
The record’s structure, with three short “Fragment” instrumentals threading between the full songs, gives Sorrows an album-length logic that most debuts lack. “Penance” is guttural and slow, “Whispers” is the album’s most atmospheric stretch, “Embers”, the other demo, fully reworked, builds to a crescendo that earns its six-minute runtime. “Rite” closes everything with a finality that feels ritual rather than just conclusive. These aren’t just good songs; they’re arranged to mean something together.
The production sits in the space between Amenra’s controlled fury and something more traditionally gothic, there’s reverb on the guitars but it’s not drowning them, which lets the riff-work stay legible even in the heaviest passages. Alder’s vocals are the most dynamic element in the mix: quiet enough in the whispered sections to make you lean in, loud enough in the aggressive ones to genuinely startle. The rhythm section (drummer Olly Olly and bassist Fraser Mackintosh) keeps everything grounded without pulling focus from the vocal and guitar interplay up front.
Standout tracks: Wolfsbane, Embers, Rite
Cwfen are heading to Resurrection Fest in 2026 and Dynamo Metalfest after that. Remember the name now; the venues are only getting bigger. Sorrows is a debut that sounds like a band arriving exactly where they intended to.
