Released in 1971, First Utterance by Comus stands as one of the most enigmatic and unsettling albums to emerge from the British folk scene. It was the band’s debut, and in many ways, their only fully realized artistic statement, as their follow-up (To Keep from Crying, 1974) took a significantly more conventional direction. Unlike the more ethereal or politically charged contemporaries in the progressive folk world—such as Pentangle, Fairport Convention, or even The Incredible String Band—Comus forged a far darker and more primal sonic identity.

At a time when progressive rock and psychedelic folk were expanding the boundaries of popular music, First Utterance arrived as an outlier: raw, unfiltered, and brimming with a near-maniacal energy that blended medieval folk with avant-garde sensibilities. The album’s themes—madness, violence, pagan rituals, and unhinged sexuality—stood in stark contrast to the bucolic mysticism of many folk acts of the era.

Sonic Exploration

Production Quality

The production of First Utterance is a fascinating paradox—it is both raw and meticulously arranged, creating an atmosphere that feels ancient, ritualistic, and slightly unhinged. Unlike the polished, high-fidelity recordings of contemporaries like Jethro Tull or Genesis, the album embraces a more organic, almost live-in-the-room quality. The mix is spacious but never sterile, allowing each instrument to breathe while maintaining a sense of intimacy and intensity.

The slightly gritty, unvarnished production works in service of the album’s unsettling themes. There is an immediacy to the sound, as though the listener has stumbled upon some forgotten woodland gathering where eerie folk musicians summon spirits through song. Acoustic guitars rattle and scrape, violin lines slice through the mix like jagged edges, and the percussion—often sparse but impactful—feels tribal, reinforcing the album’s primal energy. This is not the polished, pastoral folk of Nick Drake; this is folk as invocation, as something dangerous and untamed.

Musical Arrangements

Comus’ instrumental approach is a key element of First Utterance’s singularity. The band avoids conventional song structures, instead opting for dynamic, evolving compositions that shift unpredictably between moments of whispering calm and wild, frenzied catharsis.

The acoustic guitar work is particularly striking—Roger Wootton and Glenn Goring weave intricate, often dissonant patterns that pulse with urgency. Meanwhile, Colin Pearson’s violin lines are among the album’s most chilling elements, oscillating between ghostly wails and frantic, stabbing phrases reminiscent of avant-garde classical music. Andy Hellaby’s bass playing is unconventional for a folk album, often using sliding, percussive techniques that add to the creeping, organic feel of the music.

Vocally, First Utterance is even more extreme. Wootton delivers his lyrics in a deranged mix of snarls, wails, and maniacal cackles, creating a theatricality rarely heard in folk music. Bobbie Watson’s ethereal harmonies contrast sharply with Wootton’s unhinged delivery, sometimes offering a sense of beauty, other times heightening the eerie tension. This interplay between voices—gruff and delicate, sinister and angelic—adds to the album’s unsettling duality, reinforcing its themes of madness and mysticism.

Genre Elements

First Utterance is often labeled progressive folk, but this description barely scratches the surface of its musical breadth. The album draws from medieval and Renaissance folk traditions, lending it an almost pagan, ancient quality. At the same time, its unorthodox structures, extreme dynamics, and unpredictable shifts in mood align it with the experimentalism of progressive rock.

Beyond folk and prog, there are moments that flirt with the intensity of proto-punk and even the raw emotional extremity of black metal—genres that wouldn’t fully develop until years later. The band’s willingness to embrace atonality, unsettling harmonies, and visceral vocal performances makes First Utterance a deeply avant-garde work, one that resists easy categorization.

Lyrical Analysis

Themes and Messages

The lyrical landscape of First Utterance is as unsettling and unorthodox as its sonic world. This is an album obsessed with primal instincts, madness, violence, pagan mysticism, and the grotesque. Unlike much of the folk music of the era, which often romanticized nature in pastoral or spiritual ways, Comus presents a vision of the wild as something dark, feral, and uncontrollable—a realm of ritual and cruelty rather than peace and harmony.

One of the most striking lyrical themes is madness, particularly in songs like Drip Drip and The Prisoner. These tracks explore deranged states of mind, with Drip Drip depicting a sadistic murderer reveling in his victim’s suffering, while The Prisoner paints a portrait of someone trapped in mental turmoil, possibly institutionalized. There’s an almost voyeuristic quality to how Comus explores insanity, as if the listener is being pulled into the fragmented consciousness of the afflicted.

Another major theme is violence and violation, most shockingly in Diana, which describes a frenzied pursuit of a woman, potentially an allusion to sexual violence. The visceral, primal language in these lyrics removes any modern moral lens, making it feel like an ancient rite of passage rather than an act of personal brutality. Song to Comus, one of the album’s most disturbing tracks, reinforces this idea, evoking imagery of orgiastic ritual, predatory lust, and pagan sacrifice.

Beyond violence, there are also themes of paganism and mysticism running throughout the album. The title First Utterance itself suggests a kind of primal invocation, as if the album is not merely a collection of songs but a conjuring of something ancient and forbidden. The references to moonlit rituals, pre-Christian deities, and the untamed wilderness create a sense of folklore that is more sinister than whimsical. The mythological allusions suggest that Comus is less concerned with human morality and more interested in the raw, unfettered forces of nature and desire.

Lyrical Depth

The lyrics on First Utterance are incredibly poetic, often feeling like feverish incantations rather than straightforward narratives. The language is rich, filled with archaic and evocative phrasing that heightens the album’s sense of timelessness. For example, in Song to Comus, lines like “Rise up Comus sing your song bewitch the maiden the day is long.” blend sensuality with submission to some dark, supernatural force.

Many of the lyrics read like fragmented, half-mad poetry, drawing the listener into an unstable psychological space. Unlike traditional storytelling folk ballads, which follow a clear narrative arc, Comus’ lyrics often feel impressionistic and surreal, leaving room for interpretation. The Bite is a great example—it references the medieval practice of self-flagellation and religious fervor, but it’s unclear if the lyrics are from the perspective of a sufferer, a tormentor, or an omniscient observer.

Despite the abstract nature of some lyrics, there is a strong sense of intentionality in the way words are used. The choice of guttural consonants, elongated vowels, and rhythmic phrasing often mimics the sounds of the instruments, making the vocals feel like an extension of the music rather than a separate element. This interplay between sound and meaning gives the album an incantatory, almost hypnotic power.

Emotional Impact

Few albums evoke such visceral discomfort through lyrics alone. Where many folk records use words to inspire nostalgia, comfort, or introspection, First Utterance forces listeners into a space of unease and confrontation. There is no attempt to justify or moralize the horrors depicted in these songs—Comus simply presents them in raw, unfiltered detail, leaving the listener to grapple with their implications.

At times, the lyrics provoke fear, disgust, or even revulsion. Yet there is also a strange beauty in the imagery, a poetic quality that makes even the darkest moments oddly mesmerizing.

Cohesion and Flow

Track Progression

From the very first ominous strums of Diana to the closing moments of The Prisoner, First Utterance unfolds like a feverish descent into a pagan nightmare. The album is not structured in a traditional narrative sense, yet there is a distinct progression—an ebb and flow of tension that gives the record an almost theatrical arc. Each track feels like a separate ritual within the same overarching ceremony, plunging deeper into the untamed, primal world Comus has created.

The opening track, Diana, acts as a frantic invocation, its galloping rhythm and frenzied vocals immediately establishing the album’s unhinged energy. This is followed by the lengthier The Herald, which contrasts sharply with its predecessor—its slow, mournful atmosphere and ethereal vocal harmonies offer a moment of eerie beauty before the madness resumes. This kind of juxtaposition continues throughout the album, with chaotic, frenzied passages (Drip Drip, Song to Comus) balanced by more introspective moments (The Herald, The Prisoner).

A particularly effective transition occurs between Drip Drip and The Bite. Drip Drip ends in an unsettling, drawn-out crescendo of insanity, and The Bite picks up immediately with an almost martial rhythm, snapping the listener into a new form of controlled aggression. Similarly, The Prisoner serves as a fitting closer—its unsettling portrayal of mental anguish leaves the listener suspended in an unresolved state, perfectly mirroring the lingering unease of the album as a whole.

Thematic Consistency

If there’s one thing First Utterance excels at, it’s maintaining a singular, uncompromising vision. The album never wavers from its unsettling pagan-folk aesthetic, and every song feels like an extension of the same twisted, hallucinatory world. Unlike many progressive folk records of the era, which often dabbled in multiple moods or sonic textures, Comus remains fully committed to its dark, ritualistic intensity.

Lyrically, the themes of madness, violence, and pagan mysticism persist across every track, ensuring that even the more subdued moments still carry an air of unease. There are no moments of levity or traditional love ballads to break the tension—only different shades of dread, ecstasy, and madness.

Musically, the arrangements and instrumentation also contribute to this cohesion. The jagged acoustic guitars, frenzied violins, and theatrical vocals appear in nearly every track, ensuring a consistent sonic identity. Even when the band slows things down (The Herald), the sense of ritualistic intensity remains, preventing any moment from feeling out of place.

Despite its relentless vision, the album avoids monotony. The shifts in tempo, dynamics, and vocal delivery ensure that each track feels distinct, even as they remain thematically connected. The result is an album that feels like a complete, immersive work—less a collection of songs and more a singular artistic statement.

Standout Tracks and Moments

Highlight Key Tracks

While First Utterance is best experienced as a complete, immersive work, several tracks stand out as particularly defining moments within its dark, ritualistic landscape.

• “Diana” – The album’s opener wastes no time plunging the listener into Comus’ world of frenzied folk horror. With its galloping acoustic guitars, stabbing violin lines, and Roger Wootton’s deranged, sneering vocals, Diana sets the tone for the album’s primal energy. The song’s relentless momentum and almost predatory lyrics make it an unsettling yet exhilarating introduction.

• “Drip Drip” – If one track encapsulates the album’s unsettling power, it’s Drip Drip. Clocking in at nearly eleven minutes, this song unfolds like a slow descent into madness, with its disturbing lyrical narrative of sadistic violence matched by an ever-building instrumental intensity. The interplay between Wootton’s rasping growl and Bobbie Watson’s ethereal harmonies is particularly chilling, as is the way the track lurches between hypnotic, looping melodies and moments of outright chaos.

• “Song to Comus” – Perhaps the most infamous track on the album, Song to Comus is a wild, unrelenting ode to the grotesque. The violin shrieks like a possessed spirit, the guitars churn with feverish energy, and the vocals range from sinister whispers to near-maniacal wails. Lyrically, it delves deep into the band’s fascination with paganism, lust, and ritual, making it one of the most thematically intense moments on the album.

• “The Herald” – In stark contrast to the album’s more frantic pieces, The Herald is a sprawling, atmospheric composition that showcases Comus’ ability to create eerie beauty. The song’s haunting, wordless vocal harmonies, combined with delicate acoustic guitar and flute, give it a sense of ghostly tranquility—though an underlying tension remains. This track proves that Comus can evoke just as much unease through restraint as they can through chaos.

Memorable Moments

• The chilling opening wail of “Diana” – Wootton’s voice enters the album like a twisted, half-human howl, immediately setting Comus apart from any folk act before or since.

• The frenzied climax of “Song to Comus” – This track’s final section spirals into complete hysteria, with instruments clashing wildly and Wootton’s vocals reaching an almost inhuman level of intensity. It’s the sonic equivalent of a ritual reaching its fever pitch.

• The mournful instrumental sections in “The Herald” – The interplay between flute and guitar in the song’s extended instrumental passages feels like a brief but eerie reprieve from the surrounding madness, reinforcing the album’s hypnotic and otherworldly quality.

• The final moments of “The Prisoner” – Closing the album on an unresolved, ominous note, The Prisoner fades into eerie silence, leaving the listener trapped in the same uncertain space as the song’s tormented narrator. It’s an unsettling but fitting end to an album that refuses to provide any sense of comfort or resolution.

Artistic Contribution and Innovation

Place in Genre/Industry

First Utterance occupies a truly unique place in the history of progressive folk, existing as both an outlier and a visionary work that pushed the boundaries of the genre into far darker and more unsettling territory than its contemporaries. While progressive folk acts of the early 1970s often drew from traditional and medieval influences, few, if any, embraced the kind of unhinged theatricality, visceral intensity, and psychological horror that Comus did.

At the time of its release in 1971, the album was largely overlooked. It arrived during a period when folk music was branching in multiple directions—some artists, like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span, were modernizing British folk traditions, while others, like The Incredible String Band, leaned into whimsical psychedelia. Meanwhile, progressive rock was dominated by the likes of Yes, Genesis, and King Crimson, who explored grandiose musical structures but rarely delved into the primal, ritualistic energy that Comus channeled.

Because of this, First Utterance didn’t fit neatly into any existing musical category. It was too raw and chaotic for traditional folk audiences, too stripped-down for the emerging world of progressive rock, and too unsettling for mainstream appeal. However, in the decades that followed, it gained a cult following, particularly among musicians drawn to its dark mysticism and avant-garde approach.

Comus’ influence can be felt in a wide array of later artists and genres:

• Progressive and experimental acts like Current 93 and Swans embraced the album’s eerie, ritualistic qualities, incorporating similar themes of mysticism and madness into their work.
• Black metal and doom folk musicians—such as Ulver and Agalloch—cited First Utterance as an inspiration for blending acoustic instrumentation with unsettling, otherworldly atmospheres.
• Even psychedelic and avant-garde rock acts, including David Tibet and Julian Cope, have championed the album, recognizing its radical departure from conventional folk traditions.

Though it was initially a commercial failure, First Utterance has since been recognized as one of the most daring, unconventional, and boundary-pushing folk albums ever recorded.

Innovation

Comus’ innovation lies in their ability to take folk music—a genre often associated with gentle storytelling and pastoral themes—and twist it into something primal, nightmarish, and wildly expressive. Several key aspects make First Utterance a groundbreaking work:

• Theatrical Vocal Delivery – Roger Wootton’s unhinged snarls, shrieks, and whispers, contrasted with Bobbie Watson’s haunting, ethereal harmonies, create a vocal performance that feels more akin to a theatrical production or ritualistic chant than a standard folk album. Few artists in the folk or progressive world had embraced such raw, manic expressiveness before Comus.

• Dissonant and Percussive Folk Arrangements – While folk rock of the era typically relied on clean, melodic guitar work, Comus utilized acoustic instruments in an almost percussive, jagged manner. The guitars are strummed with a frantic intensity, the violins wail in unpredictable bursts, and the basslines slither ominously rather than simply keeping rhythm. This approach gives the album a restless, kinetic energy that feels completely unrestrained.

• Dark, Uncompromising Themes – Folk music has long dealt with murder ballads and tragic tales, but First Utterance takes its subject matter to new extremes. Madness, violence, and pagan ritualism aren’t just passing themes—they are the core essence of the album. Songs like Drip Drip and Song to Comus do not romanticize or moralize their horrors; they immerse the listener in them, refusing to provide a safe distance.

• A Genre-Defying Approach – The album’s refusal to conform to any single genre is another key factor in its innovation. While it is rooted in folk, it incorporates elements of progressive rock, psychedelic music, avant-garde experimentation, and even proto-punk energy. This genre fluidity made it difficult to classify at the time, but it also allowed it to resonate with musicians across different styles in later years.

Closing Thoughts

First Utterance is an album unlike any other. Its combination of raw, unhinged energy, unsettling lyrical themes, and jagged, percussive folk instrumentation makes it a singular and uncompromising work. Comus’ ability to blend ancient, pagan mysticism with an almost theatrical sense of madness ensures that this record remains deeply immersive, unsettling, and utterly unique.

Its strengths lie in its fearless innovation and its ability to evoke a visceral reaction. The performances are masterful—Roger Wootton’s feral vocals and Bobbie Watson’s haunting harmonies create a dynamic tension that few folk albums have ever matched. The instrumentation is equally daring, with frenetic acoustic guitar, eerie violin, and primal rhythms weaving together a sound that feels both ancient and avant-garde. Lyrically, the album refuses to shy away from dark, taboo subjects, making it one of the most thematically intense folk records ever recorded.

However, its weaknesses—if they can even be called that—are largely a matter of accessibility. First Utterance is not an album for casual listening; it demands full immersion and a willingness to engage with its disturbing subject matter. Some listeners may find its theatricality overwhelming or its themes too unsettling to fully embrace. Additionally, while the album’s production enhances its raw, ritualistic feel, some may argue that a slightly clearer mix could have allowed its intricate arrangements to shine even more.

Despite these minor considerations, First Utterance remains an essential work of progressive folk and experimental music, influencing countless artists across genres and maintaining its status as a cult classic. It is a testament to the power of music to tap into primal emotions, ancient fears, and untamed artistic expression.

Official Rating: 9/10

This album is a masterpiece of dark folk, pushing boundaries in ways that few records dared at the time. Its intensity, originality, and haunting beauty ensure its place as one of the most striking albums of its era. The only reason it does not receive a perfect 10 is because of its extreme niche appeal—this is not an album for everyone, and its unrelenting vision may alienate some listeners. However, for those willing to step into its world of pagan horror and frenzied ecstasy, First Utterance is an unforgettable experience—one that lingers long after the final note fades into silence.