The amount of emotional weight that music that metal music can carry often feels downplayed. I doubt those people have spent much time with Warning and their classic 2006 album Watching From A Distance. It was an album that got me through so much emotional and personal turmoil that it became a part of the fabric of who I am.
Doomy dirges and heartfelt lyrics are delivered so eloquently by frontman and guitarist Patrick Walker during longform tracks that give stability to incredibly emotional weight. Nearly 20 years later, the long-awaited follow-up Rituals Of Shame is here after Walker spent many years working on his 40 Watt Sun project.
Opening with the album’s title track, you are reminded that Warning have this great singer/songwriter approach to this style of music. It’s a singular figure baring their heart and soul, showcasing Walker’s tremendous vocals between gargantuan guitars with the band adding an additional guitarist since their sizeable sophomore album was released. Lyrically you are hit with sections such as “Trembling and dumb between us is the test of a love that I can’t win. You’re watching my eyes, but you don’t know the flame I’m feeding, where all time exists. It’s easier to separate the silence from the face that I hide when I am it,” letting this album wash over you.
While Rituals Of Shame has songs of immense length, it only breaks the 10-minute threshold once, allowing for the record to tug at your heartstrings without having to belabor the point as you continue to revel in the beauty that is “Stations.” It deals with having to move through life no matter how difficult it may be and clutching to memories, remembering that you at the very least are alive.
“Night Comes Down” is a testament to wonderful song structure having minutes and minutes between and after lyrical sections finishing where the heft of the guitars and drums fill in void space marvelously, giving the listener the ability to have this wash all over them.
“Landing Lights” deals with the concept of the light of life and whether one is truly capable of sharing that light with others, with subjects of abandonment and a general reluctance to provide that to someone who may yet repeat the very same pattern. Still, there remains the capability to move on, creating a triangle of tumult that creates the feeling of inescapability.
The album closes with “Teacher,” which feels like Walker having a conversation with a loved one who appears to want to teach him that there is something to live foreven with a marred past. it’s felt through the lyrics “When all the past uncovers me cold, I smothered everything, not least in the rags of my arms. Time will turn to me.”
Walker expresses regret in wanting to learn from his past, but the pain always seems to bring him back to loneliness that becomes crushing, even if the prevailing theme here is love, not just of others, but love of oneself often the most difficult to give and comprehend.
Warning were able to return from a long recording hiatus and deliver one of the most profoundly powerful albums in recent years, both lyrically and musically. What this band does so well is they let the guitars act as the guardrails to an incredible journey led by the Dante-like figure that Walker becomes as you visit his version of The Inferno.
Following up such a classic album is tough in general, but this record deserves time to stand on its own as well. Rituals Of Shame is one of the finest and sincerest doom metal records of the 2000s.
(released June 19, 2026 on Relapse Records)
