UK forebears of emotive heft Warning — according to cultural historians, English people select one person per generation to feel all the emotions for all of them; Patrick Walker is one such feelings-carrier and his burden is much to the benefit of doom as a whole — have signed to Relapse Records for reissues and a new album. Surely ‘reissues’ means a new edition of the band’s landmark 2006 sophomore LP, Watching From a Distance — which originally came out through The Miskatonic Foundation and has been released on Cyclone Empire, Svart Records, Cappio Records, Darkness Shall Rise and others over the last 19 years — but it’s the prospect of a third Warning record that’s really exciting.

A 20-years-later follow-up! A had-to-live-through-it-first next stage for a band whose mark on the underground extended well beyond their initial tenure. But Warning have been ‘back’ for the better part of a decade at this point — their 2021 Watching From a Distance – Live at Roadburn was recorded in 2017, for example — and Walker has simultaneously kept his post-Warning project 40 Watt Sun going as 2024’s Little Weight can attest, so that there’s been creativity happening makes sense. It’s not the kind of band who’d be doing a record if they didn’t have something do say, so I’m keen to find out just what that might be.

Watching From a Distance will be 20 years old next year as well, so consider this your Warning warning or some such cringe dad-joke BS. Here’s this from the PR wire:

WARNING: Sign To Relapse Records

Recording New Album Later In 2025 / Physical Back Catalog Reissues Coming Soon / Digital Streaming Now

Performing at Damnation Fest in Nov 2025

Relapse Records has today announced the signing of legendary British doom band, WARNING. The label will reissue albums from the band’s back catalogue and will release the first new WARNING material for twenty years.

Shortly after the release of their now-iconic album, Watching from a Distance, in 2006, WARNING disbanded and was dormant until reuniting in 2017 for a series of performances playing the album in full. This return resulted in a Live at Roadburn album which will be reissued in addition to the original studio album, and their 1999 album, The Strength to Dream. The existing WARNING catalogue is available digitally now, with physical reissues to follow. LISTEN HERE.

WARNING is spearheaded by Patrick Walker (also of 40 Watt Sun), who comments:

“After seventeen years of focusing my attention and energies on other endeavours, production is well underway on a new Warning album, and I’m pleased to find a home for the band with Relapse Records, who will be releasing this long-awaited follow-up to ‘Watching from a Distance’, as well as reissuing the band’s back catalogue.

“Considering the quality and integrity of their releases, I feel privileged, and am grateful to Relapse, for honouring and preserving my past work, and for their trust and confidence in this next chapter of my musical journey.”

Writing for the new WARNING album is already underway, with recording scheduled for later in 2025. The band will perform at Damnation Festival in the UK this November, where they will debut new material alongside the Watching from a Distance album in its entirety.

The current line up for WARNING is:
Patrick Walker – Guitar and Vocals
Marcus Hatfield – Bass
Wayne Taylor – Guitar
Andrew Prestidge – Drums

https://www.warningband.com
https://linktr.ee/warningdoom
https://warningdoom.bandcamp.com
https://instagram.com/warningdoom
https://www.facebook.com/Warningdoom

http://www.relapse.com
https://relapserecords.bandcamp.com/
http://www.instagram.com/relapserecords
http://www.facebook.com/RelapseRecords

Warning, Watching From a Distance (2006)

This is its own excuse for being, as far as I’m concerned. I was fortunate enough to be in the room for day three of Roadburn Festival 2017 when long-gone UK doomers Warning made a return to perform their 2006 album, Watching From a Distance, in its entirety. It was heavy — even more so emotionally than tonally or in a sense of “doom” as a heavy genre. It was a heavy experience. Patrick Walker had a singularly depressive charisma from the stage, and I’m not sure I’ve seen someone before or since so willing to put himself completely into a performance. Or if he wasn’t, he’s easily the best at selling it that I’ve ever seen, and either way, it was a striking performance.

Cappio Records, run by Roadburn‘s own Becky Laverty, will oversee the release of Watching From a Distance – Live at Roadburn on Sept. 24 as a limited 2LP. Preorders start tomorrow and I’d be surprised if copies lasted much longer than that. If you’re on the fence, come on down.

Info and links follow:

Warning: Watching from a Distance – Live at Roadburn

Release date: 24th September 2021
Pre-orders go on sale on Tuesday 13th July at 18.00 GMT
For full details please visit: https://warningband.bigcartel.com/products

Cappio Records is creaking back into life to issue the label’s first physical release: Warning – Watching from a Distance – Live at Roadburn.

Recorded live in 2017 at Roadburn Festival in The Netherlands, this live album captures the return of this legendary doom band after an extended hiatus.

Recorded by Marcel van de Vondervoort and his team on site, audio was mixed by Chris Fullard, and mastered by Michael Lawrence at Bladud Flies!. The double gatefold vinyl features exclusively commissioned artwork by Finnish artist Tekla Vály, who has created photographic interpretations of all the studio album’s original sleeve artwork.

The pressing is limited to just 500 hand-numbered copies. It will be available in ‘blue steel’ and ‘sea foam green’ colour variants.

Pre-orders will go live on Tuesday, July 13 at 6pm.

Stay tuned for more information.

https://www.facebook.com/Warningdoom
https://warningdoom.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CappioRecords
https://twitter.com/CappioRecords
https://warningdoom.bandcamp.com/
http://www.cappiorecords.com/

Warning, Watching From a Distance (2006)

Humble Pie, Smokin’ (1972)

Good times had by all. And by all, I mean everybody. Some records just don’t take no for an answer, and that’s Humble Pie‘s 1972 LP, Smokin‘, all the way. The UK heavy rockers’ fifth full-length, it was also the first after guitarist Peter Frampton split, only to be replaced by Clem Clempson (Colosseum) in the lineup alongside guitarist/vocalist/founder Steve Marriott (Small Faces), bassist/vocalist Greg Ridley (Spooky Tooth) and drummer Jerry Shirley. It’s also unquestionably their biggest album, released by A&M Records and powered by the landmark single “30 Days in the Hole,” which opens side B, but of course it’s a far richer offering when taken front to back than that ultra-hook can fully convey, and whether it’s the guest spot Stephen Stills puts in on organ and vocals for “Hot and Nasty” — which lives up to its name — or the driving heavy rock and roll of closer “Sweet Peace and Time,” Smokin’ is a classic through and through in performance, songwriting, and vibe. Like I said, good times had by all.

Like a lot of acts of the era, particularly 1970-1973, Humble Pie were taken with a post-Cream blues sensibility, but they cleaned up the boogie with a slice of funk, as one can plainly hear on cuts like “The Fixer” — a Marriott original; compare to Cactus‘ slowed down take on “Long Tall Sally,” released the year before — or the ultra-friendly Eddie Cochran cover “C’mon Everybody,” both of which appear on the first half of the record. One can debate whether or not “You’re so Good for Me,” with its churchgoing acoustic blues foundation, piano and underlying rhythmic swing, was anything that Parliament hadn’t already been doing for three years at that point, but Humble Pie would hardly be the first of the English rock set to borrow from American black culture — or, for that matter, the American set, or any other — and the twanging context of “Old Time Feeling,” the jam on the Junior Walker cover “Road Runner” and the bluesy sprawl of “I Wonder,” Smokin‘ could hardly be accused of being one-dimensional in that regard. Marriott‘s interplay with background singers in “30 Days in the Hole” is likewise an aspect drawn out of soul and R&B, but Humble Pie marry it to rock heft and impact in a way that would help shape the model an entire generation of acts followed.

The band continued for a long time after Smokin’, with various lineups, various players taking control of the name, and so on. When Steve Marriott died in a house fire in 1991, Greg Ridley held the reins on their by-then formidable legacy, and after he died of pneumonia in 2003, Jerry Shirley toured with a lineup as Humble Pie and derivations thereof as well. When the Smokin’ incarnation of Humble Pie split in 1975, Clempson hooked up with Cozy Powell (Jeff Beck, Black Sabbath, etc.) in Strange Brew and went on to do film work and play backing a whole swath of distinguished acts and solo artists from the era, be it Jack Bruce or Bob Dylan.

As always, I hope you enjoy. I’ve wanted to close out a week with Smokin’ for a long time, and as it’s Universal at this point who owns the label group to which A&M Records belongs, the album rarely stays on YouTube long. But even when it gets removed, the record’s been reissued more times than I can count, so it’s not like it’s not readily accessible, and hell, if you’re reading this, you probably own a copy already anyway. So just go grab it and put it on. And again, enjoy.

—

Quick week. Needed one. Not free of stress by any stretch of the imagination, but could be worse. The Patient Mrs. and I put our townhouse on the market this week. Monday we had a photographer in to take pictures. You can see our collectible plate with Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation in the kitchen shot (because yes, it hangs in the kitchen) and my Candlemass promotional wall hanging for their 2005 self-titled reunion album in the office, but other than that, the place looks good. I take no credit for any of it. The Patient Mrs. took the idea and ran with it and basically the plan is to see what we can get for the place before we decide if we’re actually going to move. If we do go anywhere, it’ll be south a bit, probably to Rhode Island if we can, or otherwise near the border. We can just inch our way toward living in Connecticut (the dream) one domicile at a time for the next 35 years. That’ll be fine.

Open house on Sunday, if you’re free. Someone’s coming in this morning to clean, so hopefully by then the place won’t be re-covered in dog hair.

Before I get to next week’s stuff — there’s a lot of it — let me just say that if you didn’t get to check out the Zaum album stream that went up yesterday, you should do so. I turned 35 this week and every year I decide to write about something special on my birthday to treat myself, and this year I wrote about Zaum on the day before the post went up as my little present to me. So yeah, if you haven’t dug into that, obviously I think it’s worth your time.

Also had a blast writing the Asteroid review that went up this morning, so there’s that as well.

Okay, next week. Of course it’s subject to change, but here’s the current plan:

Monday: Full album stream and review for the new Albez Duz.
Tuesday: A Devil to Pay album review and a Droids Attack video/audio premiere that’s going to be really cool.
Wednesday: A full stream and review of the new Scissorfight EP.
Thursday: A one-two combo review of new stuff from Mos Generator and a video premiere and big news from Geezer.
Friday: Pending, obviously, but right now I’ve got a review of the solo debut from Magnus Pelander of Witchcraft.

That’s what’s slated as of today. Could shift around some. I’ve already pushed that Pelander review back considerably.

Any video gamers out there? I bought myself a tablet last weekend (I guess that was actually the birthday present to myself; got a Samsung one on the cheap) and have been playing Final Fantasy V on it as I’ve never actually played that one and IV is my favorite game of all time and VI is an ultra-classic as well. They’ve got Final Fantasy XV coming out next month and I’m considering preordering a PS4 Pro to play it. Anyway, just some nerd stuff that has me excited. If you’re down, awesome. If not, sorry for the aside.

My mother and sister’s son are coming north tomorrow to spend the day and stay over to Sunday, so lots going on this weekend between that and the open house. Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great one. Stay safe and have fun and please check out the forum and radio stream.

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