Sleep

I’m trying to avoid simply recounting concerts or bands, but in this case I can’t resist.  Although I’ve referred to stoner rock bands countless times already, I haven’t blogged about Sleep in particular, and they are a particularly important band in that genre.

Current lineup:  Matt Pike (guitar), Al Cisneros (bass/vocals), Jason Roeder (drums).   Cisneros was also in a band called OM, which is heavy dronelike s**t.  Five albums: Variations on a Theme, Conference of the Birds, Pilgrimage, God is Good, and Adviatic Songs.  The singing sounds like it’s in Byzantine or some foreign language.  It reminds me of SunnO))).  To make matters even more stonerish, Cisneros was also in a one-off band called Shrinebuilder, somewhat of a stoner rock supergroup with only one (awesome) self-titled album, featuring Dale Crover on drums (the Melvins), Scott Kelly (Neurosis) on bass, and the ever-popular Scott “Wino” Weinrich (Saint Vitus & the Obsessed, among others) on guitar and vocals.  Note that current Sleep drummer, Jason Roeder, was with Neurosis, making two members of that band Al Cisneros has worked with. 

Discography:  Volume 1, Holy Mountain, Jerusalem/Dopesmoker, The Sciences.  With the exception of J/D (see below) these four albums have multiple songs with lyrics.

Along with Kyuss, Sleep can be considered one of the premiere stoner rock bands.  They began around 1991 and continued to 1998, at which point they broke up when the record label refused to release their album, Jerusalem, also known as Dopesmoker, a continuous 52 minute song (later released on a different label).  While most of their songs can be enjoyed without herbal enhancement, the latter album almost requires it to be listenable, and I imagine the record company weren’t 4:20 friendly enough to make that work.   

Doom with a Groove.  As noted earlier, a frequent complaint of stoner rock is that too much of it sounds the same, mostly bands incessantly copying not only Black Sabbath but also each other.  A subset of stoner rock is doom, which seems to take Black Sabbath, particularly “Into the Void”, the last song on Master of Reality and tuned down to C#, and make it even slower, heavier and doomier.  Electric Wizard really come to mind on this, but SunnO))) and Sleep do this as well.  And after awhile that really gets dull and tiresome.  Are you trying to lull everyone to sleep?  [WARNING:  DO NOT USE INDICA].  So the challenge with this is keeping it lively when you’re tuned down low – thus the GROOVE.  I could hear a definite groove with Pike & the boys that night, and certainly on The Sciences.  I did not fall asleep during this show. 

Pike tends to play Les Pauls through multiple Orange amps – I counted three heads and six 4x12” cabinets – and heavily detuned.  He doesn’t wear a shirt.  Cisneros handles the vocals and Rickenbacker bass, through no less than 4 full stacks of Sunn amps.  The music drones but (as noted) has a definite groove which breaks up what might otherwise be monotonous and dull.  Both shows (see below) were highly enjoyable. 

In 2000, Pike formed High On Fire, more of a thrash metal band, and continued with that for awhile, putting out 8 albums between 2000 and now.  I actually saw them open for Opeth in Baltimore in 2008, but for some reason they didn’t impress me.  I tried listening to their stuff on Spotify and it went in one ear and out the other.  Like a fair amount of thrash metal, it does a poor job of distinguishing itself from angry white noise.  Fortunately Sleep are much different.

In 2009 Sleep reformed and began touring again.  Recently they released a new album of awesome s**t, called The Sciences.  [Technically it seems High on Fire is on hiatus and not disbanded.]  

Here is a particularly good (and of course, positive) review of the new album which addresses much of the circumstances surrounding its long-awaited arrival: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/sleep-the-sciences/

Now I’ve seen them twice, both at the new 9:30 Club in DC.

2016 set list.     Dragonaut, Holy Mountain, Dopesmoker (excerpt), The Clarity, Sonic Titan, Aquarian, From Beyond, Cultivator/Improved Morris.

2018 setlist.       Marijuanaut’s Theme, Holy Mountain, The Clarity, Sonic Titan, Giza Butler, Leagues Beneath, The Botanist, Dragonaut, encore: Dopesmoker (excerpt).   Remarkably, the following night they played another show, a different setlist featuring most of Holy Mountain.   Hopefully Pike was using a new guitar cable. 

As you might imagine, this is a band not quite shy about declaring their love of marijuana consumption.  In addition to the names, and much bud-like imagery on the album covers and t-shirts, the concession stand at the recent show featured lighters, credit card-style grinders, and at a premium, metal grinders – i.e. MJ paraphernalia.  Other bands are doing the same these days, so it’s only a matter of time before band-emblazoned bongs, pipes, rolling papers, etc., become available.  Hell, Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg have proprietary weed strains, so as legalization spreads, perhaps we’ll see that from stoner rock bands as well – hell, concert venues would be well advised to double as legal dispensaries (dare we hope).  DC, where the concert took place, has legalized possession, but not sale, of MJ.  Stay tuned.  In the meantime, enjoy SLEEP.