40 Watt Sun
The Inside Room

"Through me, the way into the suffering city,
through me, the way to eternal pain,
through me, the way that runs among the lost."
(Dante, v. 1-3 Canto III)

After listening to "The inside room," the first three overused and very famous lines of the third canto of the "Divine Comedy," were the most obvious literary reference that came to my mind. This album allows you to look inside yourself, seeking a solution to suffering.

An immense work (both qualitatively and in terms of assimilability), born from the minds of the three musicians who make up 40 Watt Sun, a new doom metal band. William Spong on bass, Christian Leitch behind the drums, and Patrick Walker on guitar and vocals. It's precisely the latter who is the pivot of this new reality: enthusiasts of the genre will surely know him for the two albums with Warning, his first creation. However, Warning is now dead. Walker's new ideas could no longer continue within the Warning project. Hence, the need to form a new project. "I think I have grown as a musician, beyond what Warning was. I needed a new project to carry forward the new songs, which, frankly, I saw as not suitable for Warning's production."

From here arises Pat Walker's desire to bring 40 Watt Sun to life. On March 4th of this 2011, it is time for the release of "The inside room," a work once again heavily influenced by its creator and his way of interpreting music. Listening to the CD, the first thing that immediately grabs the listener's attention is the sound of the guitar: if in Warning's "Watching from a distance" (what is unanimously considered their masterpiece and one of the greatest expressions of doom metal in the new millennium), the guitar also served as "accompaniment," here it flexes its muscles. A shrill and perpetually hard sound accompanies Walker's magnificent voice, today one of the best interpreters of the genre in the entire world scene. His suffering way of interpreting the vocal part distinguishes him from all other singers in the scene.

"The inside room" is thus a journey into the unknown, with no hope of survival. Just as Dante through the fiery infernal lands, The inside room offers no respite in terms of sound heaviness and global atmosphere. Drums and bass serve only to accompany the long laments of the guitar, while Walker's voice makes "Restless" and "Open my eyes" jewels of suffering as rarely created before. In "Between times", there's just enough time for a slight tempering of the emotional charge of the first two tracks. Then one immerses again in a wide sea of gloom and lost moments with "Carry me home" and "This alone". Five tracks that leave no room for digressions of any kind but instead open real wounds. Above all this stand out highly personal lyrics, too intimate not to feel somehow involved in Walker's verses.

In the extreme sonic simplicity of the offering, 40 Watt Sun manages to create a short circuit of emotions, handling with extreme frankness the stylistic canons of doom metal, a definition that even seems too limited for the CD. Walker and his musicians serve the feelings and create another wonderful pearl, brushing the heights of the masterpiece "Watching from a distance". And excuse me if it's little...

"You make me know myself"

1. "Restless" (10:45)
2. "Open My Eyes" (10:43)
3. "Between Times" (6:54)
4. "Carry Me Home" (9:38)
5. "This Alone" (9:30)