Album Review: 40 Watt Sun - Perfect Light
Reviewed by Richard Oliver
Although famed for his seminal work with influential cult doom metal band Warning, Patrick Walker has been impressing with the material recorded under his 40 Watt Sun moniker. Each album has been different from the other from the dirgy doom of The Inside Room to the atmospheric alternative rock of Wider Than The Sky and change is again present with third album Perfect Light.
Perfect Light is tonally similar to previous album Wider Than The Sky but it is a far more stripped down album. Most songs are carried by Walker’s voice and an acoustic guitar (and sometimes electric) although there is also the inclusion of bass, drums, piano and keys throughout. For this album, rather than rely on a formal band structure Walker has hired accomplished musicians such as Andrew Prestidge and Roland Scriver (The Osiris Club), Ajit Gill (Vertaal), Lorraine Rath (Amber Asylum/Worm Ouroboros), and pianist/composer Chris Redman to help fulfil his vision.
The results speak for themselves in eight songs that are bursting at the seams with emotion. Songs such as Reveal, Until, The Spaces In Between and A Thousand Miles very much balance darkness and light and are loaded with sadness and melancholy but also at the same time they have an overarching feel of hope to them. Patrick Walker is in fine form with his heartbreaking croon being one of the strongest aspects of the album and elevating the emotion throughout many of the songs.
Perfect Light is a gorgeous sounding album and although sonically worlds apart from the harrowing doom of Warning’s Watching From A Distance, this is still doom in nature albeit a very stripped down and emotional form. The album is a bit overlong and some of the songs could easily have been trimmed down but Patrick Walker has always written music which demands time and patience. If you need something relatively easy to listen to which will also hit you in the feels then Perfect Light is the perfect album for that.
