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Dopesmoker
Artist:
Sleep
Format: CD
New: Currently Unavailable New
Used: Currently Unavailable $0.00
Wish
Formats and Editions
1. Dopesmoker
2. Sonic Titan - (hidden track)
More Info:
While pundits often seem eager to throw the adjective "uncompromising" at any rock musician with more than three nipple-rings, what we have here is the real deal. After haphazardly embarking on their intensely single-minded career in the late-'80s, Northern California's pioneering prophets of doom-metal took the opportunity of a '90s major-label advance to record a 63-plus-minute magnum opus to ganja and other Valhalla-friendly political conceits that effectively cost them same promising record deal and embroiled them in enough turmoil to permanently splinter the band. Cut by nearly a dozen minutes, the track eventually surfaced in ‘99 to some critical acclaim as "Jerusalem." But now, sounding like a hung-over Thor awakening from a three-century bender, the original hour-plus "Dopesmoker" returns to stake its claim as the heaviest, if minimally expansive metal dirge of them all, with founder/vocalist Al Cisneros's massive bass drone and tortured growl making for a hypnotic, if harrowing, listening experience. This new edition also includes the previously unreleased, live-in-the-studio "Sonic Titan," a comparatively upbeat drone that breezes in at just under 10 minutes.Reviews:
Northern California stoner rock legends Sleep got inked to a major-label record deal when the buzz on Kyuss and Monster Magnet was picking up, and squandered a large part of an alleged six-figure advance on kind bud. The rest went towards churning out the greatest paean to marijuana ever (sorry, Tony Iommi): a 63-minute journey into the land of the Weedian people. An unauthorized version of the recording was released under the name Jerusalem a few years back but Dopesmoker presents the recording as the band intended it, alternating fluidly between the wall of sound generated by Matt Pike's guitars and the massive low-end rumble of Al Cisneros' bass. A bonus live recording-"Sonic Titan"-offers a more direct parallel to the sound that Pike would later shift away from in High on Fire.
