Salvaging one of my few Number of the Blog reviews that I could find.
Pat Walker is one of those unfortunate musicians that will probably never escape their past. Walker will pretty much always be best known for the album Watching From a Distance, and he really should feel no shame about that, seeing as how WFaD is widely considered a classic of modern doom metal. Even though there is no shame being associated with that album, the shadow that a monolithic album like that can cast over one’s career is hardly enviable. Everything Walker does now will inevitably be compared to that album. With that little intro out of the way, let’s move on to the album at hand: The Inside Room by 40 Watt Sun.
So yeah, this album sounds like Watching From a Distance, but “different”. How is it different? Well, all the same elements are there: slow plodding guitar riffs with a faint hint of melody rising above the distortion, lyrics about love and loss, and of course Pat Walker’s amazingly emotional vocals over the top of everything. The difference lies in the feel and the atmosphere of the album. Whilst Watching From a Distance was bleak and pitch black, with not a glimmer of hope, The Inside Room offers some hope. Like standing on a thin grey ledge, with darkness and despair below, but with a light at the other end of the ledge (if that makes any sense). Looking at that description, it sounds pretty stupid, but that’s the best way I could phrase it.
Musically, this album is pretty damn simple. It plods along, hammering out funeral doom riffs that just happen to be sped up. The guitars are extremely fuzzy and distorted (for the most part, there’s an occasional acoustic break), so a lot of the riffs are a bit hard to discern, but not too hard. Occasionally you will hear melodies rise above it all, but on closer listens it becomes apparent that those melodies are pretty much omnipresent throughout the album. Drums and bass aren’t anything spectacular or standoutish, as they serve their purpose and never take center stage (The drums you don’t notice tend to be my favorite kind of drums). It’s fine that there’s nothing spectacular about the instruments on this album, as this is not an album that one showcases their technical ability on. Rather, the instruments serve more as a soundscape for Pat Walker’s vocals to soar over.
And that brings us to one of the main draws of this album: Walker’s vocals. Walker’s nasally voice (which is never annoying) is highly emotive, though not always completely clear. It can be hard to make out some of the lyrics at times, though you are never in the dark as to what the lyrics are trying to convey emotionally (as Walker’s voice expresses them perfectly). The band also does not release lyrics, so I’ve had to puzzle them out on my own. From what I can tell, they’re far more hopeful than Warning’s stuff.
So yeah, I think this album is absolutely amazing in every way shape and form, and can’t think of a single negative thing to say about it (it’s too short, maybe. But at 47 minutes, that’s more just me not wanting it to end than anything else). We shall see if this album stands the test of time to become a classic doom album that will be spoken of with reverence in the future. For what it counts, I think The Inside Room completely deserves that status.
Number of the Blagh 