Danette is on a two week cruise with her mother and friends, so in her absence I have resumed what is now a tradition when she's gone: listening to
Sleep's "
Dopesmoker" on repeat while doing things around the house. This is an LP I've recommended to many friends and colleagues now, so I guess I should blog about it.
Sleep is a stoner/doom band from California, and I'm not 100% certain how I first heard of them. They're in the same circle as Earth and Sunn O))), so perhaps I learned of them from Butch. Or maybe I just read about them online -- it's all appropriately fuzzy, given the cannabis connection.
The story of this LP is a little bit complicated. Recorded in 1996, their record label at the time did not want to release it because, among other things, the "album" is just an hour long single song. In 1999, an unauthorized edited version of the LP was released as "Jerusalem", with six different tracks, all named "Jerusalem". In 2003, a version was released as "Dopesmoker" with a single eponymous track, and in 2012 another version was released (the 2012 version on Southern Lord Records is the one I have).
One of the best things about the doom metal genre is that they don't shy away from their Black Sabbath roots, and this LP is no exception. I mention this only because many bands seek to deny or obfuscate their influences, but doom metal is perhaps the only genre that can agree the canon is dominated by the first six Sabbath LPs. The production is cleaner and heavier at the same time (these production dimensions are often in conflict) than the early 70s Sabbath, but the through line from "Master of Reality" to "Dopesmoker" is obvious.
So yeah, slow, plodding, detuned guitars are what you get. There are vocals, and they're borderline Cookie Monster, but not distractingly so. They do obscure the lyrics, which is fortunate because apparently there's a story about the "Weedians" or some such; I've made it a point to not look up the lyrics because I'm sure they'd only disappoint. Cisneros's voice works well as another instrument, and exactly what he's saying isn't important.
Regardless, it all comes together in a hazy, hypnotic, slowly evolving repetitive swirl that has to be considered a high point of the genre. Despite, or perhaps because, being a single hour track, it holds up to listening to it on repeat all afternoon.*
Standout tracks: "Dopesmoker"
Skip 'em tracks: The 2012 release comes with a bonus live version of "Holy Mountain", which is not necessarily bad, but clearly doesn't not fit the original artistic vision of the LP itself.
Score: 10/10. Again, it's absolutely central to the genre, but before you listen, you've got to buy into the conceit of a single track that's 63 minutes long.
* "Repeat all afternoon" works best when your spouse is not home.
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