{"id":636155,"date":"2026-06-13T05:37:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T05:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/636155\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T05:37:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T05:37:33","slug":"yer-metal-is-olde-warning-watching-from-a-distance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/636155\/","title":{"rendered":"Yer Metal is Olde: Warning – Watching from a Distance"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s not that often that I\u2019ll have difficulty talking about an album that\u2019s hitting its 20 year anniversary soon. In the case of Watching from a Distance, the second (and at the time, final) album from UK doom metal (then-) trio Warning, giving words to the atmosphere, the weight, and the aching hurt emanating from these five songs proved to be more than daunting. It\u2019s not that often that you come across an album that feels like a sonic gutpunch that just doesn\u2019t stop punching you into emotional submission, and guitarist\/vocalist\/mainman Patrick Walker did so effortlessly. It\u2019s hard to not feel something while listening to the album, then or now. It\u2019s this encapsulation of utter sadness and yearning that would influence many since, and what better time than now to induct Watching from a Distance into the Halls of the Olde?<\/p>\n

Warning didn\u2019t come from the more Gothic sounds of their contemporaries (and fellow YMIO inductees) Anathema, My Dying Bride, or Paradise Lost. Lyrically, they also couldn\u2019t be more different. Whereas not many people could sing about fighting the gods like Darren White did, nor can we all take Aaron Stainthorpe\u2019s hand or do we all have the ability to opaque the dissident establishment that we all suffer like Nick Holmes, we\u2019ve all encountered the aftermath of a break-up or losing a loved one. If you haven\u2019t, rest assured it\u2019s coming, and no one can articulate the sheer crushing feeling that comes with that like Walker does here, and it\u2019s especially not at the level of maturity he exhibited. No fingers pointed, no blame assigned, no good\/bad person(s) to smear\u2026 just the aftermath, the pain that comes with it, and the knowledge (or lack thereof) of what to do next to move on.<\/p>\n

Watching from a Distance by Warning<\/a><\/p>\n

Take the devastatingly heartbreaking \u201cBridges,\u201d in which there\u2019s very little variation between riffs and percussive patterns, and that\u2019s on purpose: the rhythm section of bassist Marcus Hatfield and drummer Stuart Springthorpe knew to keep things plodding and controlled by design, further accentuating the repetitive riffs and lyrics of Walker\u2019s. Speaking of, each verse ends with Walker achingly bellowing \u201cI wish you were here with me tonight,\u201d with each passing verse more dire and heartwrenching than the last, with the final pass preceded by \u201cCan someone feel too much?\u201d Tear-inducing on its own, but when it\u2019s immediately followed by Walker harmoniously bellowing towards the end, those who are unprepared will be reduced to a quivering pile of sobs. Emotionally decimating.<\/p>\n

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The other four songs also float by with the grace and delicacy of a cinder block thrown right at your heart and emotions. The closing combo of \u201cFaces\u201d and \u201cEchoes\u201d do a fine job of further bringing the sorrow and pain, with the former lamenting a sense of normalcy amongst the crumble of a failed relationship, while the latter recalls pleasant memories of what was, but will never be again. However, it\u2019s the opening one-two suckerpunch of the title track and \u201cFootprints\u201d that everyone remembers, and with good reason. The title track feels like a moment in time where Walker sees the wreckage of a the relationship and sees what he remembers are the good qualities, but it\u2019s far too late to turn back the clock and repair the damage. And \u201cFootprints\u201d\u2026 man, fuck \u201cFootprints\u201d so much. At first a bit more upbeat than \u201cWatching from a Distance,\u201d all seemingly feels almost uplifting when suddenly Walker bares all in the song\u2019s final few minutes, complete with a desperate delivery, complete with an emotionally charged voice that cracks and warbles in a broken manner that I made the mistake of listening to it the first time on my way home from work, and I had to pull over to partake in the ugliest of purging crying sessions. It\u2019s ultra-rare that doom metal can make me feel that way, and Walker and company succeeded in accomplishing this in spades.<\/p>\n

It was a sad time when Walker disbanded Warning in 2009, due to the simplest of reasons: artistic integrity and keeping his vision intact, forming the formidable 40 Watt Sun, an acoustic continuation of what Warning achieved. However, with their influence driving the likes of Pallbearer and Khemmis (among others), it was only a matter of time before Warning would return with Hatfield in tow, and now with their long-awaited third album, Rituals of Shame, on the horizon, it\u2019s only fitting to induct Watching from a Distance in the Halls of the Olde. Give this a listen, but bring tissues.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not that often that I\u2019ll have difficulty talking about an album that\u2019s hitting its 20 year anniversary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[214956,214957,96,214958,128,86979,123016,28181,56,54,55,16000,214959,214960],"class_list":["post-636155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-40-watt-sun","tag-anathema","tag-entertainment","tag-khemmis","tag-music","tag-my-dying-bride","tag-pallbearer","tag-paradise-lost","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-warning","tag-watching-from-a-distance","tag-yer-metal-is-olde"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}