Year of Metal #046: Sleep - The Sciences
Sleep’s iconic Dopesmoker (also known as Jerusalem, with a release history too complicated to wrap my head around) was for years an album that filled me with fear. It’s an hour of thudding, plodding doom, a single piece (sometimes broken up into movements) that offers no respite or relief, just dark, imposing vibes. The amazing sci-fi cover art of hooded creatures marching across a sunbaked desert is apt - it’s an overwhelming prospect.
When I finally came to listen to it (while reading Harry Sword’s excellent drone book Monolithic Undertow), I actually found it great fun. It’s rare you get to hear something as colossal as Dopesmoker, and while the artistry is unconventional and textural rather than melodic, the sheer force of the music is something rare. All that is to say I was excited to listen to 2018’s The Sciences, a record nearly 20 years in the making, but that it had a high bar to clear. For better and worse, it’s a more accessible record than Dopesmoker and not something I was quite so awed by, but the takeaway is that Sleep’s guitars crush more than any other band’s out there.
After the opening title track builds tension through feedback, we’re really back in business with “Marijuanaut’s Theme”. The track starts with a bong hit, then Sleep do what they do best: hit one chord over and over again, with the occasional wiggly riff. For me, this is the truly heavy stuff. Sleep don’t deal in abrasiveness or spooky sounds. Instead everything is monumental, thick, heavy in the truest sense of the word. Matt Pike’s solo, when it hits, is gnarled and nasty, stretching out like a knotty old tree branch in a haunted forest.
It’s no dig at all to say that the rest of the album continues in much the same vein. What are you coming to a Sleep album for if you don’t want big grinding riffs that keep hitting you again and again? The sprawling “Sonic Titan” is a cracker, utilising the always-effective technique of riding a groove that seems to be going nowhere, then suddenly sweeping up the fretboard for a moment before returning. The music isn’t either as slow or as sludgy as on Dopesmoker - you could believe these guys have places to be, and the production has a little more breathing room and distinction between the players.
It’s also abundantly charming. You can’t help but love three dudes in their late 40s who get together, smoke a load of weed, then sing songs about smoking weed. “Giza Butler” might be my pick of the bunch. Named for the Black Sabbath bassist of almost the same name, it’s a mission of sorts for Sleep, bringing together all the stuff they love - smoke, heavy old music, daffy made up mythology - and jamming it together over a fat riff and pummelling drums.
It’s chunky, daft, it sounds brilliant. The recording pops but it’s never over-polished. This and Electric Wizard would be a great entryway to this kind of music - it’s plenty accessible but it stays true to the roots of dark, dense, slow songs. Plus they’ve got one of the best fonts in music. What’s not to like?
