Sleep - Dopesmoker

[Civil Disobedient]

Everyone knows High on Fire and to a lesser extent Om, but the band that came before was the legendary Sleep.

Their best record, in my opinion, is the legendary middle-finger to their record label, "Dopesmoker". Comprising of one single hour-long stoner rock masterpiece with more riffs than you could possibly digest in single-figure listens, it set the high watermark for stoner rock that hundreds of bands have tried and failed to reach.

The legend is thus: after signing to a major record label, London Records, and squandering much of their advance on hash, they delivered this monster to the suits, who were not happy that their safe, marketable product did not materialize, and refused to release it. Only after shortening it, splitting it into 6 tracks and renaming it "Jerusalem" against the bands wishes did they agree to release it, but by then the damage was done. It was only later that a small indie label released the original.

If you ever get a spare hour you owe it to yourself to stare into space with this on, slowly nodding your head with a retarded smile on your face. It helped influence such bands as Clutch, Sunn0))) and any other recent stoner/doom you care to mention.

[AllThingsEqual]

Dopesmoker is good, but I personally liked Holy Mountain better. I thought the album was a bit more heavy. I haven't listened to Dopesmoker in a long, long time because I haven't gotten back into the the stoner scene. I think the only stoner band that I have listened to out of my stoner music phase was Kyuss because they are my favorite. I was actually aware of Sleep before I listened to HOF, which I thought was actually more common. I also fail to see how the heck Sunn O))) is stoner. I always saw them as a Dark Ambient band. I do agree that the members of Sunn O))) took influence from that record because they have like ten stoner bands they are a part of.

[Clutch]

Don't really see how Holy Mountain is heavier, as its biggest flaw is its terribly shoddy production. Still great though. Dopesmoker, on the other hand, is an absolute monster that threatens to destroy my speakers every time I spin it. Yeah, it really hasn't been matched, but the only album I can think of that even came close to it is probably Yob's Catharsis, or hell, any of Yob's albums. Now that I think of it, Yob and maayyybe Electric Wizard are probably the only stoner doom bands other than the Sleep/HOF/Om trifecta that were able to do their genre right, without being just "another stoner band." That's not to say that there aren't other good bands out there in the genre, though.

I did speak to Matt Pike of Sleep/HoF on one occasion after a HoF show and his words were pretty much according to what the "legend" states. Jerusalem (Later to become Dopesmoker) was indeed a "**** you" to the label, after they blew all the label's money on reefer and Green Matamps. Man, I would have killed to see the final tour they did opening for Hawkwind where they performed Dopesmoker in front of a screen showing various space videos, and I don't even use any mind-altering substances. Hmm, I always found it odd how I gravitate to this kind of music despite this fact.

And yeah, I don't think this band influenced Clutch at all really, considering Clutch were well on their way to finding their own sound long before this album ever came out, and let's not forget that Sleep and Clutch don't even sound very similar at all. As for Sunn O))), I'm sure it's true that Sleep had a profound influence on Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley, but I would attribute Sunn's influence to Earth moreso than Sleep.

Speaking of Om, did anyone else hear that Chris Hakius quit? Al replaced him with the drummer of Grails and they've got a 7 inch coming out on Sub Pop and a live LP - "Live from Jerusalem" on Southern Lord soon. Definitely looking forward to those.

[mr.rpg king]

Call me lame but my favorite album is still Sleep's Holy Mountain. I'm actually listening to it right now.