40 Watt Sun - Wider Than The Sky review
Band: | 40 Watt Sun |
Album: | Wider Than The Sky |
Style: | Slowcore |
Release date: | October 14, 2016 |
A review by: | BitterCOld |
01. Stages
02. Beyond You
03. Another Room
04. Pictures
05. Craven Road
06. Marazion
Wider Than The Sky marks the tragic yet triumphant return of 40 Watt Sun, some five years after their inaugural effort, The Inside Room. The bar was set pretty high for this one.
How high?
Rarified air high considering The Inside Room was my 2011 co-album of the year (alongside Sleestak's The Fall Of Altrusia, if you must pry). Oh, and Watching From A Distance, the final album of Patrick Walker's prior band Warning sits atop my "Best of the 00's" article, though admittedly in a dead heat with Negură Bunget's Om.
So a bar as high in the wide sky.
As you can see from the green 9 you probably noticed before delving in to my ramblings, it's very safe to say they met and exceeded my expectations.
For starters, what's the same?
You have the same trio as last time out. You have Pat Walker's emotive (albeit "whiny" to some) vocals & lyrics as well as guitar work. You also have the relatively undersung contributions of William Spong, who plays bass as well as handles recording and mixing duties and Christian Leitch, who drums and handles the design work.
You have epic-length tracks conveying emotions of tragedy, loss, heart ache, etc. Songs continue to be minimalist in approach. The added space perhaps allows room for the lyrics to be absorbed by the listener. Additionally, there is some build up to the emotive value of the music as well. Not to some post-metal crescendo or anything, but just as a misty rain might build up to a moderate "I'd best get in out of the rain now" rain. "Beyond You" begins with a simple progression that goes on a bit, but builds up some steam and impact towards the end of the tune.
What's different is one of the reasons I like this album so much.
The SOUND. While the same basic song structures, minimalist execution and themes might trace back to Warning days, each album I treasure has its own very distinct sound and feel. Watching From A Distance was stark epic doom metal. The Inside Room was much warmer, a result of fuzzed-out overdrive tone. That album was already one step away from doom, and Walker seems to have been less than thrilled the album was tagged as doom by the label.
Now 40 Watt Sun is clearly no longer doom. Or metal. At all. All gone. Not a distortion pedal in sight.
Wider Than The Sky finds Walker using a clean, but reverbed tone on the guitar. They decided it was the best way to convey the emotive content, and I agree. It works. Further, I enjoy it because it's almost a sonic illusion of sorts. It seems the most stripped down of an already minimalist guitarist's work? but I think in reality there is actually more going on as the songs progress.
So yeah, not doom, not metal (so likely won't be appearing on a top metal list from me), but this is an album that will have a permanent place on my most memory-limited of listening devices.
Rarified air.
Rating breakdown
Performance: | 9 |
Songwriting: | 9 |
Originality: | 8 |
Production: | 9 |
| Written on 14.10.2016 by BitterCOld has been officially reviewing albums for MetalStorm since 2009. |
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