Sleep
Volume One
Before Om, there was Sleep and ‘Volume One’ was their debut album release, on Californian label Tupelo (probably best known for releasing Nirvana’s ‘Bleach’ in Europe). It hit the shelves in 1991 to great acclaim and the band were eventually signed by metal dons Earache, but ‘Volume One’ has been unavailable for some time now, and with the renewed interest in Hakius and Cisneros it makes perfect sense to have the album available once again.
Sleep were quite clearly indebted to Black Sabbath at t…
Holy Mountain
Remastered from the original tapes, here comes a due reissue of Sleep’s iconic second studio album "Holy Mountain", originally released in November 1992 in Europe and March 1993 in the USA through Earache Records. Widely considered as one of the most seminal albums in the evolution of stoner rock, it became a favourite of the heavy metal press and the band was heralded - along with Kyuss - as leaders of the emerging stoner metal scene. The song "Dragonaut" was used in the 1997 Harmony Korine fil…
Dopesmoker
The story behind Dopesmoker, the final LP in the life of pioneering stoner sludge trio Sleep, is one of perseverance not usually associated with such dedicated grass aficionados. Intended to be the Cali band’s third record and first for major label London, the album took shape as a single 63-minute track entitled “Dopesmoker,” an ode to the joys of getting baked. After nearly two months of work, the band (guitarist Matt Pike, bassist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Hakius) pronounced the opus…