Less than two years after making their first demos, Cwfen entered the studio with no plans beyond making music with longtime friends. But since Sorrows dropped in May 2025, they’ve delivered sell-out tours, appeared on annual best album lists, and beat The Cure and Lambrini Girls to Drowned in Sound’s Neptune Prize.
The Scottish quartet are surprised by these rapid achievements, but have some theories why it’s happening. “There’s the maturation of our songwriting – we’ve been doing music for a very long time,” says guitarist-vocalist Agnes Alder. “And Sorrows has an authenticity since we wanted to make music just for us.”
Lead guitarist Guy DeNuit adds: “Our slightly eccentric blend of genres might have helped. There’s blackened metal for extreme music fans; we’re downbeat and doomy for Sabbath or Melvins fans; and there’s melodicism and clean vocals too. We’re not afraid to write a hook. If we hear a good lyric, riff or melody, it goes in the cauldron with the rest.”
Their fanbase has been built on hypnotic live performances led by a possessed Alder, her makeup half corpse-paint, half warpaint. Their name – the Welsh spelling of “coven” – signals their proud Celtic roots and powerful blend of the occult with righteous anger.
DeNuit says they met and honed their craft in the Glasgow DIY scene: “It’s a supportive and inclusive city to be in fringe spaces, no matter what style of music you play. As long as you take it seriously and you’re not an arsehole, you can make some pals and get some gigs.”
Alder almost hung up her guitar for good after her previous band ended, but a “dark night of the soul” during Covid clarified that writing music was too important to quit, and she brought some rough demos to DeNuit.
“I had a lot of songs to get out of my body – I wrote Wolfsbane and Bodies back-to-back in two days. I also taught myself to scream in secret, in the car and the shower, but I kept that in my back pocket until we’d had a few rehearsals!”
Both caught the guitar bug young. But the half-size classical DeNuit got as a kid “wasn’t what I had in mind when I asked my parents for a guitar – the Flying V I’d seen ZZ Top play on TV!”
Alder got a Game Boy for Christmas in 1994 and became obsessed the Ultima II: Runes of Virtue OST, but the full-size Spanish guitar she got at age 7 was too challenging. “I couldn’t bridge the gap of the instrument and the soundtrack, so parked it for a while,” she admits.
Fortunately, both found their ways back in their teens. DeNuit got enough lessons to play Nirvana’s In Utero tab book cover-to-cover before forming his first band with drummer Rös Ranquinn.
Alder was re-inspired by Nirvana, Hole, PJ Harvey and the “jangly spooky guitars” of her parents’ new romantic record collection. “I liked spaciousness and detail rather than a hundred different notes in a bar,” she says. “I’m more interested in atmospherics.”
Cwfen’s seasoned and thoughtful approach extends to their gear choice – even their picks. Alder prefers Ernie Ball’s 1.5mm Prodigy. “A tiny little vampire fang of a pick. I tried a normal pick recently and it was like playing with a teaspoon!”
Vincent Gallo and a guitarist from The Hives were in a bidding war on eBay, buying up all the Travis Beans. We couldn’t get near them
Guy DeNuit
DeNuit uses heavy Delrin or Ernie Ball Everlast live; his Fernandes stainless steels never leave the studio. “The idea was a combo of Steve Albini and Brian May, who uses a sixpence to gets that bright shrill sound.”
After years of trial and error with Fender, Gretsch and Gibson, Alder now adores her two 1960s Hagstroms. “They have a really dainty, petite neck profile, like a little piece of toast,” she says, “and the offset Strat body with SG horns is really sleek.”
Cwfen create their reverb-drenched haze from DeNuit’s bi-amped Mesa Boogie DC3 and Boss Katana, alongside Alder’s Red Muck, Boss Chorus and RE-20 Space Echo. Alder recorded with real tape delays in a previous band, and fell in love with their unpredictability. “It’s like Radiohead in a box. The mischief it brings is essential.”
DeNuit cuts through the mix with Baguley aluminum necks, saying their metallic tone has “a nice percussiveness, and puts about 20 percent more treble into your amp.” Inspired by Albini, Duane Denison and Keith Levene, he’d always wanted one, but “unfortunately they became very trendy”.
“Vincent Gallo and a guitarist from The Hives were in a bidding war on eBay, buying up all the Travis Beans. The rest of us couldn’t get anywhere near them!”
While Cwfen are thrilled to be touring with Goth-metal titans Paradise Lost soon, they’re already keen to explore new ground. “I want my guitar to sound bigger and clearer on the next record, more spacious and immersive,” DeNuit reports.
“As with Sorrows, I don’t want to bring in everyone else’s expectations,” says Alder. “After the tour, I want to sequester myself away and write songs without looking at the internet, and see what comes out.”
- Sorrows is out now via New Heavy Sounds.
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