little weight (2024)
lp | compact disc | digital download
“Characterized by a simple, calm beauty that is special and extraordinary… one can confidently say that 40 Watt Sun has created their best album to date.”
metal.de
“Few artists write music like Patrick Walker… His innate talent and creativity have made his musical efforts in 40 Watt Sun a model of consistency and exceptional musicianship. Little Weight contains some of the best songs he has ever written.”
Treble
"The usual rock critics will declare this record a new masterpiece of heartfelt emotion, and they might not be wrong on this occasion."
Scream Blast Repeat
"Patrick Walker's cracked folksinger voice filters the familiar closing-time country rock consciousness of Marks Eitzel or Kozelek, but through a heavier and more pronouncedly contemplative soundscape, as great cosmic slabs of guitar and drums shift like tectonic plates around mournful memories. Little Weight is a keeper, and 40 Watt Sun are my new favourite band."
Stewart Lee, The Idler magazine
“The crushing ache it conveys is far more oppressive than any third-rate amplifier worshippers could ever muster. The songs here might be lean, but they brim over with meaning, purpose and a wrenching sense of saudade.”
Metal Hammer magazine
"This is by far his best album since The Inside Room, and probably, if I'm fair, since Watching from a Distance."
Machine Music
“Little Weight is a genius piece of heartrending songwriting. It tells its tale in a passionate and soulful way. A remarkable album from a remarkable man."
Rockflesh
“…understated greatness… not an ounce of quality has been lost. If anything, they've found their defining moment.”
Album of the Year
"This is the warmest and most passionate album of their career so far."
Grumble Monster
“A band of pure personality and charisma, 40 Watt Sun once again marks another milestone in its discography.”
La Habitación
"Approaching the new 40 Watt Sun requires grit because you’ll either be fighting back tears or white-knuckling through difficult memories... Walker still has no problem grabbing limbic systems with a vice-like grip."
Invisible Oranges
“The quiet, almost choked, intonations, set up the soaring highs that come when Walker lets go of the control and the raw heart of 40 Watt Sun truly shines. There can be little doubt of his prowess and ability to craft an achingly beautiful experience.”
The Sleeping Shaman
"Simply excellent songwriting.”
Metal Digest
"40 Watt Sun triumphs on emotional impact, and Little Weight delivers that in spades... Every moment is a testament to Walker’s ability to craft music that reaches to the depths of heart and soul."
Everything is Noise
"A poetic, heartfelt collection that's rawer and more immediate than its meticulous predecessor."
Norman Records
"Everything Patrick Walker touches with his voice turns into gold... An album full of personal heartfelt songs that go deep under your skin."
Music_Recommendations
"The latest from 40 Watt Sun transcends all categories. Timeless, transporting songs — too heavy (emotionally) for any sort of casual consumption."
Hank Shteamer - Best of 2024
“Both the most diverse and accessible album in the band’s discography. The individual identity of each track is much stronger than it’s ever been, and the album is all the better for it. Little Weight is an experience unlike any other… Patrick Walker and his crew demonstrate that, when grief and loss fall behind, love and beauty can still ache just the same… A new evolution of an incredibly idiosyncratic outfit that forges its own path with serenity and wonder grown from pain and loss.”
Angry Metal Guy
"Painfully beautiful... It is made for the heart and rips you open."
Monster Riff
“Little Weight is truly stunning… Slow-burning alternative rock like this is a bit of an acquired taste, but 40 Watt Sun continues to be one of the best modern examples of the style.”
Metal Trenches
“Walker's vocals are stunning, melancholic and soulful, he delivers every line with conviction. Inspired by things lost over time Little Weight is another tearjerker from 40 Watt Sun; Walker's voice and the music behind it never fails to move me.” 9/10
Musipedia of Metal
“A journey into richly-crafted emotion, one that aches with affecting depth… A record of great beauty, Little Weight offers the discerning musical connoisseur a sublime listening experience. It’s a record that grows in power with each listen, gradually working its way further and further into your very being.”
Wonderbox Metal
“Little Weight taps in to the raw emotion of some of Walker’s earlier material… the music just as much about hope or healing as it is about longing, heartbreak and pain. A web of interconnected contraditions, grounded in reality; this is love in its purest form - 5/5”
Narc Magazine
“An album that flows from start to finish without a hitch, Little Weight could potentially become the album of definitive consecration, thanks to a broader writing, capable of highlighting the emotional component even more.”
Metal Italia
9/10
Rock Hard magazine
9.5/10
Saitenkult.de
"Targeted emotional blows provide a wonderful shock and once again underline the exceptional status of 40 Watt Sun."
Deminic-Nights.at
"...Truly of profound beauty; 40 Watt Sun has provided us with the necessary sunlight for the coming autumn and winter."
Da Music
"Where Perfect Light and Wider Than the Sky were steeped in sadness, Little Weight expels it. It might be the most hopeful album I’ve heard this year, a return to the light from the deepest darkest places."
Angry Metal Guy Top Ten of 2024
Releases
Perfect Light (2022)
2LP | 2CD digibook | CD | digital download
“Gutting, gorgeous, pitch-perfect… Perfect Light is destined to be passed among fans of immersive mood music meant to soundtrack our lowest moments.”
Pitchfork (The 38 Best Rock Albums of 2022)
“An even more affective and effective experience than its predecessor, and one of Walker's most beautiful and heartfelt records to date.”
The Quietus
“The album reaffirms that Walker is one of our finest living songwriters.”
Bandcamp Daily
“The greatest songwriters can you draw you in closer the quieter and more understated they get. Patrick Walker is at his softest here, but he sounds as arresting as ever.”
Rolling Stone
“A record to stop time and mend hearts, from the most sublime of voices.”
Jonathan Selzer, Metal Hammer magazine
“A heartbreaking glimpse into the mind of one of the most emotive and underrated vocalists and songwriters in Britain today.”
Echoes and Dust
“Effortlessly sublime… a searing masterpiece.”
Album of the Year
“Outstandingly beautiful...This album is currently the benchmark for everything that may come in 2022.”
PrettyInNoise
“A superb artistic achievement of breath-taking beauty.”
Music in Belgium
“Frequently beautiful, and often achingly poignant… the third album by 40 Watt Sun is quite exceptional, and possibly one of the most affecting and emotionally resonant records you’ll hear this year.”
Wonderbox Metal
“Every track is wonderful in its own stately way, although some like Behind My Eyes (if there’s a better song released by the end of 2022, we’re in for a good year) and the mellow The Spaces In Between do emerge as highlights… Perfect Light stands proudly as a (very) early 2022 album of the year contender. Subdued and sombre, but also inviting in its way, this is a highly-accomplished work.”
Sputnik Music
“A near-perfect record.”
DaMusic
“Perfect Light is a work of raw honesty.”
Treblezine
“On their third album, Walker puts his voice and his endless heartbreak firmly at the centre, with sparse, primarily acoustic instrumentation. In a softer vessel, his soul only grows louder, his soul more haunted.”
Spin Magazine
“A triumph of emotive energy… Perfect Light is an album that begs for the stillness, for the quiet. In these spaces, it reveals itself to have depth and resonance beyond its appearance.”
The Sleeping Shaman
“Perfect Light is a stunning album.”
Paul Scoble, Musipedia of Metal
“One of the best and most expressive voices in the whole music scene.”
Heavy Metal Webzine
“Perfect Light is the band’s third proper album and perhaps the most beautiful entry to date… this is a harrowing and poignant album with the ability to tug at your heartstrings at every turn.”
Heavy Music HQ
Wider than the Sky (2016)
2LP | CD | digital download
"An introverted record of unpretentious music, stripped of any external considerations… Profound music worth exploring.”
Decibel Magazine
"Heavy in sentiment rather than sonics, with Walker's ever-so-slightly fuzzed-out chords and watery single-note lines hovering weightlessly over the rhythm section's spare and deliberate accompaniments. The results are particularly stunning…”
Rolling Stone
"...it’s the life-weary yearning in Walker’s voice that holds all the tragedy. And now that his sombre melodies and intensely honest lyrics are the obvious centrepiece, his open wounds – and old scars – are more in evidence than ever."
LouderSound
“Stunning, morose grandeur… 40 Watt Sun generate a gloomy grace unique in modern music.”
Kerrang! magazine
“The most beautiful record of 2016”
Nine Circles
"No other music I heard this year came anywhere close to this record in terms of this kind of gravity, potency, just realness. The most direct way I can put it is that Wider Than the Sky is unspeakably beautiful, a true gift."
Hank Shteamer
"An album of painfully emotive, low-key rock music; one which shimmers with some of the most evocative, stirring songs Patrick Walker has written to date."
The Obelisk
“Don’t overlook this record. It’s stunningly beautiful.”
Everything Is Noise
"Wider than the Sky is a beautiful presentation of honesty, dreams, sadness and passion, and 40 Watt Sun are a band to be engulfed by"
Scene Point Blank
The Inside Room (2011)
2LP | CD | digital download
“The metal album of the year. The Inside Room is the phenomenal debut from British three-piece 40 Watt Sun. A bona fide underground metal masterpiece. Deeply satisfying in emotional terms, it harnesses all of the finest attributes of dirge-like sepulchral doom, yet steadfastly ignores all the genre rules.… achingly, hauntingly beautiful… — an unquestionably transcendent work of art that deserves a lot more exposure... An extraordinary achievement.”
Pop Matters
"The fact remains that 40 Watt Sun's debut stands, alongside all of Walker's past and future achievements, as one of the most stirring, beautiful albums in recent memory."
Machine Music "Albums of the Decade"
“This is special music that transcends any genre boundaries, makes them meaningless. Awarding any album a perfect score is a bold statement, but I genuinely wouldn’t change a single thing about The Inside Room. This is a simply beautiful album that deserves to be heard.”
Powerplay Magazine
"Both crushingly heavy and almost unbearably gorgeous... the ultimate in bleak beauty."
Spin
“Gut-wrenching heartbreak laid open for all the world to see… The Inside Room is a real contender for album of the year.”
Metal Hammer
"One of the most affecting debuts of the year."
Scene Point Blank
“Heartfelt, genuine and beautiful.”
Sputnik Music
“…mournful, meandering balladry with pared-back, almost hauntingly simply instrumental work. Emotionally draining as it may be, it’s the perfect fare for those who understand the fragile, introverted fascination of a room without a view."
Kerrang! Magazine
“Truly this album is a beautiful, majestic thing.”
Soundshock
“…unflinching in its sentimentality… Anyone with a pulse will call it truly affecting… This album transcends genres; a thing of stark beauty that’s for everybody."
Social Entertainment
"Walker has a soul-bearing [vocal] style that's powerfully gripping... I defy you to listen to any one of these five tracks and not have the melodies ringing in your head for hours and days after."
No Clean Singing
“…sweeping hooks, painful, introspective lyrics, and Walker's clear, soaring voice.”
Pitchfork (#4 Best Metal Albums of 2011)