Sleep
(Copyright © 1999 Piero Scaruffi | Legal restrictions - Termini d'uso )
Volume One , 6/10
Sleep's Holy Mountain , 6.5/10
Jerusalem , 7.5/10
High On Fire: Art Of Self Defense , 6.5/10
High On Fire: Surrounded By Thieves (2002), 5/10
High On Fire: Blessed Black Wings (2005), 6/10
High On Fire: Death Is This Communion (2007), 6/10
Om: Variations on a Theme (2005), 5/10
Om: Pilgrimage (2007), 5/10 		Links:
Sleep (originally Asbestos Death) were formed in San Jose (California) by singer/bassist Al Cisneros, guitarist Matt Pike, drummer Chris Haklus and a second guitarist. Volume One (Very Small, 1992), a collection of slow, dark, booming dirges, bridged doom-metal and stoner-rock. The music's gothic overtones wed hallucinated states of mind and the two become one deep coma. Every song is a gesture of mental apocalypse. Cisneros mumbles a witch's prayer over the heavy Black Sabbath riff of Stillborn. Guitar and bass deliver an epic and tragic melody towards the end of Suffering. Nebuchadnezzar's Dream erupts black lava.
Melody and harmony are mere accidents of playing instrumentation. In their hands, the slow-burning blues of Numb becomes a vision of unredeemed horror. A vaguely middle-eastern motive climbs out of Catatonic's trance.
Cisneros' mind is permanently blinded by a dense fog of drugs. The drums are as lively as zombie steps. The bass carries the melody to make it sound menacing and otherwordly. Guitar riffs pierce anything that moves in the viscid slurry.

The band was reduced to a trio for the EP Volume 2 (Off The Disk, 1991). The subsequent album Sleep's Holy Mountain (Earache, 1993) showed a more assured combo. Even if pomp still reigns unbridled (The Druid), tracks like the nine-minute Holy Mountain and Evil Gypsy contain lengthy free-form jamming. The ten-minute Led Zeppelin-ian psychedelic blues From Beyond even constructs a complex dialectic of silence, shouting and transcendent guitar solos. Dragonaut (Cream-like melody and panzer pace), Inside The Sun (with sideral guitars and MC5-like emphasis), and Aquarian (another straightforward melody) are no less entertaining (the way Dracula was entertaining to rats). While not very original, the album's sound is the quintessence of "stoner"-rock (Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer).

After a long hiatus, Sleep returned with the most ambitious work of their career: Jerusalem (Dopesmoker, 1998) contains one huge 52-minute (mostly instrumental) six-movement suite that represents one of the most extreme attempts at scoring the deepest torments of the human psyche. The first movement opens with brooding intermittent riffs. For seven minutes these riffs mutter a fragmented melody. Then the vocals pick it up, but one hardly feels that the human voice is more "human" than the monster rumble that preceded it. In the second movement the guitar engages in a series of deranged Hendrix-ian solos that conceal an agonizing blues number, despite the loud drumming and monster bass riffs. The voice comes out of its lethargy on the third movement, but, again, Cisneros is hardly a "singer": his style is more similar to a howling wolf. The fourth movement is another convoluted guitar monologue, this time with Indian and Japanese overtones (occasionally reminiscent of the Mahavishnu Orchestra). The guitar returns to the "agonizing-blues" style in the fifth movement before the voice leads the suite to a massive close in the heaviest and most Black Sabbath-ian of the six movements.

Dopesmoker (Tee Pee, 2003) is the original 63-minute version of Jerusalem, as recorded in 1995.

(Translation by/ Tradotto da Claudio Vespignani)

Gli Sleep furono formati a San Jose (California) dal cantante/bassista Al Cisneros, dal chitarrista Matt Pike e dal batterista Chris Haklus. Volume One (Very Small 1992) e` una raccolta di lente, oscure, rimbombanti litanie che collegano il doom-metal con lo stoner-rock. I caratteri gotici della musica si sposano stati mentali allucinati, provocando un profondo stato comatoso. Ogni brano e` un atto di apocalisse mentale. Cisneros mormora una preghiera di stregoneria sopra un pesante riff alla Black Sabbath in Stillborn. Chitarra e basso recitano una epica, tragica melodia verso la fine di Suffering. Nebuchadnezzar’s dream erutta lava nera. Melodia e armonia sono pure casualite` nella loro tecnica strumentistica. Nelle loro mani, il blues a lenta combustione di Numb diventa una visione di orrore irredento. Un motivo vagamente mediorientale oltrepassa la trance di Catatonic. La mente di Cisneros e` permanentemente accecata da una nebbia densa di droghe. La batteria e` vivace come il passo di uno zombie. Il basso sostiene la melodia fino a farla suonare minacciosa. I riff chitarristici straziano qualsiasi cosa si muova sul viscido sottofondo.

Sleep’s holy mountain (Earache 1993) mostra un complesso piu` sicuro di se`. Anche se regna ancora una pompa sfrenata (The druid), brani come Holy Mountain e Evil Gipsy sono quasi free-form, e Inside the sun e` musica da camera per la generazione doom.

Dopo una lunga sosta, gli Sleep sono tornati col lavoro piu` ambizioso della loro carriera. Jerusalem (Dopesmoker 1998) contiene una immensa suite in 6 movimenti e rappresenta il tentativo piu` estremo di orchestrare i tormenti piu` profondi della psiche umana.

Former Sleep's guitarist Matt Pike built a career out of stretching out Black Sabbath's riffs in hyper-lysergic trances. Enrolling George Rice on bass and Des Kensel on drums, Pike formed High On Fire and released Art Of Self Defense (Man's Ruin, 2000 - Tee Pee, 2002), an album of emphatic hard-rock. The trio roars out Baghdad and then stretches out in the slower, more solemn, eight-minute 10,000 Years, as well as in the cosmic-tribal Last One and the eight-minute Fireface, that opens like a Led Zeppelin blues. The trio pens songs such as Blood From Zion that are both elegant and claustrophobic. At the opposite end of the spectrum they craft the agonizing ten-minute Master Of Fists, one ugly beast that ends with a demonic coda. Art Of Self Defense was followed by the inferior Surrounded By Thieves (Relapse, 2002), that was heaviness for the sake of claiming the title of heaviest band in the world. Blessed Black Wings (Relapse, 2005), instead, reestablished High On Fire's reputation via an impeccable parade of earth-shaking riffs. At last, a song like Devilution displayed signs of life, charging at the speed of death-metal. Cometh Down Hessian is pummeling hardcore punk-rock with anthemic metal overtones. Brother In The Wind is not only lively but even melodic. At the other extreme, To Cross The Bridge is sheer chaos and noise. The seven-minute instrumental Sons Of Thunder is possibly the artistic peak of the album and a show of instrumental dexterity, notably for the tribal drumming and the post-Hendrixian guitar work. The old principle of heaviness for the sake of heaviness dominates the eight-minute Blessed Black Wings and little else. Death Is This Communion (Relapse, 2007) juxtaposed the crushing stoner-rock of Fury Whip and Turk and the gloomy instrumental DII with the more sophisticated eight-minute Death Is This Communion as well as with the seven-minute Ethereal, an unlikely balance of gentle (melodic) vocals and heavy sound.

Sleep's bassist and vocalist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Haklus formed the guitar-less Om and recorded the three lengthy doom-laden tracks of Variations on a Theme (Holy Mountain, 2005). The 21-minute On The Mountain At Dawn is too derivative of Black Sabbath (and repetitive) to stand on its own. The 12-minute Kapila's Theme is a heavy and slow rumble, while the third track (also 12-minute long), Annapurna, starts at a fast pace only to collapse later on in a similarly catatonic rhythm. Nonetheless, it is the third track that gives hope of hearing a more original variant on the much abused Black Sabbath stereotype. By the time they released the mini-album Conference Of The Birds (Holy Mountain, 2006), the duo had mastered the idea of playing without a guitar. Unfortunately, Pilgrimage (2007) did not introduce any meaningful element. It was even less understated.

(Translation by/ Tradotto da xxx)

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