Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Warning, who recently announced their first new album in 20 years, “Rituals of Shame”, due June 19 via Relapse Records, release a second track from the eagerly-awaited album with today’s unveiling of “Night Comes Down”.
“Whenever I’m asked to say something about a song I immediately find myself faced with a kind of writer’s paralysis,” Patrick Walker explains. “I tend to be rather reticent when it comes to my songs’ meaning, and what else can I say about something that I’ve spent such a long time writing in an effort to articulate some thought or feeling as succinctly and as truthfully as I can.
I also tend to recoil at the general perception that precedes my music, but yet looking back over the lyric now, it’s without doubt one of the most irredeemably dark things I’ve written. The first verse and chorus tumbled out in a single stream of consciousness. I decided to keep it exactly as written, and phrased it to fit the music. There are maybe only two or three other instances where I’ve done this.”
“Night Comes Down” follows the release of “Stations. ”Stereogum described the song as “a hefty, funereal power ballad,” and FLOOD Magazine noted that it continues the “borderline-slowcore musical palette” of Watching from a Distance.
Walker, who also leads 40 Watt Sun, began work on “Rituals of Shame” in January 2025, writing seven days a week over three months as he turned his full focus back to Warning. The album was recorded at The Arch Studio, a 140-year-old former church in Southport, U.K., with recording and mixing handled by Chris Fullard (Idles, Sunn O))), Ulver).
The decision to make a new Warning album emerged from a transformative period in Walker’s life. Reluctant to explain his lyrics in detail, Walker acknowledges that thework reflects a deeply personal present moment, with the collection echoing the themes that have long defined his writing: longing, separation, and most of all, love.
“Rituals of Shame” is available now for pre-order on various vinyl variants and other physical formats, as well as digital pre-saves.
“Rituals of Shame” tracklisting:
1. Rituals of Shame
2. Stations
3. Night Comes Down
4. Landing Lights
5. Teacher
Warning tour dates:
