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40 Watt Sun > Wider than the Sky > Reviews > caspian
40 Watt Sun - Wider than the Sky

REEEEEEEEEEEE - 5%

caspian, June 27th, 2017

I hear a lot that I've mellowed since I've gotten married, had a kid etc. Most dudes into their 30s, into the parenthood stage of their life will likely have the same said about them... You don't necessarily have the energy or time to be FULL OF HATE all the time, you ask yourself "is this worth it?" a bit more before opening your mouth and it's hard to be mad if you've got a cute little kid, if you're in a healthy relationship, so on and so forth. Music still brings out the bitter, vaguely autistic old Caspian from time to time though, so in that regard I'd like to thank 40 watt sun for making me feel like I'm a 20 year old again. That is the only good thing about this album.

The first 40 Watt Sun was some of the worst, some of the lamest, most self pitying tripe I've heard in my life, and I gave it a crack when I was in the middle of a pretty devastating breakup, so even in the most ideal listening circumstances it was awful. Anyway, this album takes the only good thing about the album- the huge guitar tone- and swaps it for a semi clean thingo. It's like.. it's like getting the Nazis and removing their fashion sense and the cool looking V2 rocket they had. There is absolutely nothing good here.

Musically, it's pretty simple to describe. It's kinda like the world's worst slowcore, like if you took Low's worst album, made the songs twice as long, then put some z-grade singer over the top. Then make the songs a bit longer. There is no reason Stages- a song with 3 musical ideas, none of them particularly interesting- needs to be 16 minutes long. For those who haven't heard any slowcore- which is a genre capable of a lot more than what you hear here- just imagine slow, sad rock tunes with some sad guitar chords being strummed- no interesting guitar parts allowed, thank you- while a dude moans about a woman who broke up with him a few years ago. Listening to Warning, 40 Watt etc., it's pretty easy to see why the guys' muse did indeed split with him; I can't see him being very fun at parties.

It's just wretchedly bad. The songs go nowhere, and they go nowhere in such a boring, trite, drawn out fashion. It's classic emperor's new clothes music/art- you make something boring enough, you turn the contrast down enough, you make something dour enough and people will eventually mistake it for something profound.

To those who are fans of 40 watt.. I understand it.. Well, kind of. Existential angst, relationship angst are potent brews to sip from and you get hooked on it after a while. But there's about 20 million bands who do it far better than 40 Watt Sun. My recommendation would be pretty much anything else.