Times are troubled. The world is on fire; data centers slurp our water supplies and spit up surveillance and slop, while dialogue and education take a backseat to misinformed despots and their icky lickspittles. Distracted by such big problems, it is perhaps easy to become desensitized in general, or in particular to the breadth of feelings encompassed in the most personal and poignant of losses and loves. Few songwriters manage to unearth those feelings and pluck heartstrings bare so effectively as Patrick Walker, who—along with a varying roster of companions—has been honing this craft of deliberate, stripped down despondency for over two decades, spanning two different but intricately connected projects: Warning and 40 Watt Sun.
Rituals of Shame comes twenty years after Warning’s second—and at the time final—album Watching From A Distance (2006). In the wake of a successful live comeback and increasing buzz around the band Walker started writing new songs, deciding somewhat ominously these would better fit Warning's sound than 40 Watt Sun’s. I say ominously, because following 40 Watt Sun’s release trajectory over their last three albums, their sound became ever closer to hope and acceptance. After the measured, plaintive dirges of Wider than the Sky (2016), to the full range of bitter-sweet melancholy of my personal favorite, Perfect Light (2022), and the shaded shimmers of hope permeating Little Weight (2024), Rituals of Shame is a continuation in polish and experience, but a darker affair than the last two 40 Watt Sun albums, nonetheless.
Rituals of Shame hearkens back to the distortion and tastefully tortured vocal delivery of Watching From A Distance, incorporating the measured patience and picturesque attention to production detail of the past two decades. Every note rings true, every plodding drumbeat reverberates through and through, every lyric strikes the heart with razor sharp opacity, leaving just enough room for personal interpretation. Where the opening track reminds me of Wider Than the Sky in it’s length and immediate pull on the heartstrings, the following one-two of “Stations” and “Night Comes Down” feel most like classic Watching From A Distance, albeit weathered and smoothed down by the tides of time. On “Landing Lights” and “Teacher”, The Inside Room and Little Weight intermingle to imbue the former with autumn color and weigh the latter down with nostalgic significance.
While Walker’s masterful approach to songwriting and idiosyncratic vocal performance are part and parcel to Warning’s winning formula, the measured, precise excellence of 40 Watt Sun veteran and stalwart skinsman Andy Prestidge must not be underestimated. No slouch either are bassist Marcus Hatfield and guitarist Wayne Taylor, whose warm strings fill up Warning’s sonic sails on this triumphant return voyage. Sumptuously enveloped in a warm, close-knit yet booming production job courtesy of Chris Fullard (mix) and Adam Gonsalves (master) and heralded by the deadly embrace of Tekla Vály’s cover art, this album serves as a monumental capstone to two decades of musical and emotional development.
Stretched both musically and lyrically on juxtaposed tightropes between love and loss, longing and acceptance, intimate warmth and freezing separation, these five songs combine the strengths of both Warning and 40 Watt Sun. Whether you’re a new initiate or a weathered down Warning or 40 Watt Sun fan, a lover of a lighthouse keeper; Rituals of Shame is essential listening for any doom aficionado, or really anyone who likes their heavy music steeped in salt and intimacy.