Sleep's Holy Mountain

California’s Sleep were to prove to be just as out of their time as any doom metal band at work in the early 1990s. With the explosion of stoner doom over the past ten years or so, Sleep are often held up as the grandaddys of this renaissance. The direct descendants of an older form of metal that predated NWOBHM all the way back to Black Sabbath. Well, this is true of at least one of their original LPs I guess, 1992’s ‘Sleep’s Holy Mountain’. Follow up ‘Jerusalem’ in 1998 was more of an experiment in stoner noise, as was the reworked version ‘Dopesmoker’ in 2003. But with ‘Holy Mountain’ we get something approaching an album of music. Music of consistently familiar groovy riffs, that to modern ears simply oozes cool well ahead of its time.

The truth – when taken on its own merits – is that ‘Sleep’s Holy Mountain’ is a collection of great riffs, bluesy licks, both punky and understated vocals, and doom metal, all chucked in a blender and spewed back at the listener almost at random. The opening number ‘Dragonaut’ is a perfect indicator of the album to come. It begins with a quintessential blues rock riff that would be very much at home on a Blue Cheer record. As the rhythm section gets going we are treated to a classic heavy rock jam. And just as this appears poised to transition into the next phase the bass and drums cut out, to give way to a highly simple marching guitar riff. Again, this riff is pretty neat taken on its own. But one can see why the editors of ‘Gummo’ cut the intro when using this song in their film. The transition is jarring; as if they did not know where to take the music next, and simply used the next riff they had lying around with no relation to the last.

And that sort of sums up the entire album. There’s some great blues jams in here. There’s some great doom metal. Some of it calls to mind Kyuss, but without the iconic muddy trippiness. Some of it harkens to their punk roots, but aside from the raw garage band production it does little to set itself apart from Corrosion of Conformity for instance. And therein lies the real problem with this album. For whatever good ideas are to be found here, there was another band doing the same thing more coherently and engagingly than Sleep. When one compares the standing these guys have in history to their actual output of quality it leads one to wonder. Their drone/noise experiments on ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Dopesmoker’ are definitely worth a listen for their shear gall. But naturally they are less universally loved than this most patchy of albums.

Although ‘Sleep’s ‘Holy Mountain’ is far from an utter failure, there are simply better albums by better artists with better ideas played in a better order released both before and after this album. But it is held up by fans of metal-for-non-metalheads as a classic. And for some, my previous comments would provoke accusations of ‘elitism’ faster than you can shout ‘overrated’ in retort.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

Now this is much, much better. Holy Mountain is what happens when you go into the recording studio after you've rehearsed the proverbial 10,000 hours. Stoner metal is a sub-sub genre that doesn't get me super excited, but this album has plenty of entertainment value to go around. All things considered, Holy Mountain is Sleep's best album, and probably the one I'll reach for when I want to play them. Dopesmoker is a work of art and all, but I practically have to set aside a whole afternoon to savor it. This bad boy I can just pick up and spin.

The sound is typical of what you'd expect from this genre. Not quite as crisp sounding as say Candlemass, but also a different kind of ethereal from say, Hammerheart. During the solos especially is when the album has a bit of some focus issues, as my mind can never quite lock onto which instrument to pay attention to, but I suppose it's a great release of tension when the solo ends and the instruments come back together on the same lick, or at least a simpler jam.

Standout tracks include Dragonaut, which wastes no time in letting the listener know they are in for a damn fine Sabbath tribute. Not just in riffage, but rhythm section as well. Very, very few people are able to capture the vibe of the almighty Tony Iommi, and even fewer people seem capable of nailing the jazzy dynamic between Geezer and Bill Ward. From Beyond is a traveling experience capable of warping you throughout time like the various gadgets from Chrono Trigger, though for whatever reason 8 times out of 10 you keep ending up in 65000000 B.C.. The Druid is the finest, heaviest riff on the whole album, and quite possibly the greatest riff of Matt Pike's career (well ok, it and Snakes For The Divine are fighting for supremacy as we speak). Inside The Sun is the fastest song on here, but its more notable that it seems to be a prediction of Pike's future war machine, High On Fire. And yes I include the doom break as part of the equation (and yes I mean to call that a doom break. It's a breakdown, it's doomy, it's a doom break). High On Fire had doom parts too. They never quite went back to doom the same way Sleep did, but to take away that ingredient from the formula is stealing a hammer from Matt Pike's toolbox.

Speaking of Matt Pike, I know it says Al Cisneros does lead vocals on this album but I could swear I think Pike is taking the lead on songs with much more aggressive vocals like The Druid and Inside The Sun. They also sound similar to how Pike would deliver vocals in High on Fire, so it's a little hard for me to believe it's Al laying those vocals down. If he is, Al deserves a hell of a lot more credit as a vocalist because that's one hell of a range. He'd be one of the very few people who I consider to do both clean and non clean vocals wonderfully and not make me want to chuck Iron Maiden vinyls at him.

Weak moments? Well, Nain's Baptism seems like a leftover from the Volume One sessions, and I'm honestly not sure if it is better than any of the songs from there. Better to use it as ending credits than the bulk of your album I suppose. Its short and creepy enough, and it just ends so nonchalantly, almost as if Sleep were distracted by the arrival of their weed man. In this particular case I'll let it slide considering the nature of the band.

Sleep's Holy Mountain is the very few so-called "stoner" metal albums worth getting. If you don't have this, head to bed and pick it up first thing in the morning.

Sleep's Holy Mountain, released under Earache Records – then an oddity for the British death metal/grindcore label - twenty-five years ago this month, is one of the first Black Sabbath schooled metal albums to grace my half-baked and utterly random CD/vinyl collection. I'll never forget when, while suffering a negative cash flow, a hoity-toity used record shop employee in Montreal's hipster Plateau Mont-Royal borough scoffed and furrowed his nose as I regretfully proffered it for sale. Apparently, "no one's heard of it nor will they ever...so thanks but no thanks!” Looking back on the incident, all I can say is tough cookies pal as it was your loss and my gain as this fifty-two minute nine track behemoth set the tone for a soon ensuing floodgate of Sabbath influenced/inspired acts. Ironically, it now sits high up on the stoner rock/doom metal kingdom's throne as well as having originally established the genre's massive expansion as a fait accompli.

Seriously, what’s there not to rave about the goose-stepping guitar lick and accompanying meaty bass line or subsequent stoic down picked notes which soon give way to a cranium jarring riff followed by a suitably mountainous return to form on opener “Dragonaut” (more than likely a glib wordplay on the 1972 Sabbath classic, “Supernaut” from Volume 4)? For that matter, “The Druid” could be Sleep’s mythical and magical answer to “The Wizard” from 1970. I’d even hazard to say, at 02:18 following a pregnant pause the track gleefully breaks out into a late “Electric Funeral” sounding jam which feels like a forgotten studio session from the quintessential Paranoid. Furthermore, the proto-metal “Into the Sun” constitutes yet another marble rattling mind-bender as it surely feels like a cosmic eon spanning concubine to “Into the Void”. If you disagree I’ll slurp my crinkled hat through a straw!

All told, as much as I appreciate the deep reverential bow to Sabbath, what I dig most about Sleep is the way it fervently brews alternating tempos; in other words, the trio see-saws back and forth between heady maverick build-ups, barreling rhino charging riffs and frenzied “Rat Salad” style drum solos such as on the seven minute “Evil Gypsy/Solomon’s Theme” dirge which by the way is far from the longest track (that would be the Lovecraftian “From Beyond” at 10.5 minutes). Also, while most heavy doom draws its appeal from slow, swampy brooders which eventually transpire into sped up halcyon moments, Sleep is a master at revving up the unsuspecting listener with fast cavalier riffs and fat, wonky bass lines prior to ruefully slamming on the brakes, thus attaining a zenith of a diametrically opposed sort; namely, a Zombie-like ziggurat of dredging incremental guitar riffs and concordantly poised drum beats such as at 04:43 of said “Evil Gypsy/Solomon’s Theme”.

You can also expect lots of kaleidoscopic wah bass and panoramic, whirling guitar solos - notably on “Aquarian” - as well as a freaky, haranguing dagger of a Pentagram/”Death Row” riff which repeatedly rams the listener into a cobwebbed corner on “Holy Mountain” before elevated, incantation evoking vocals provide further spellbinding sensations with a by now per-requisite drilling encore. Unsurprisingly, the 2009 digipak re-issue features a super stout “Snowblind” cover solemnly (Solomon-ly?) in line with the album’s rich, high quality production. If anything, Sleep’s Holy Mountain is not only a doom lover’s wet dream but also a cornerstone of the genre where it all started for this heavy metal narcoleptic.

[Zzzzzz...]

As someone who is both a fan and musician in the doom metal scene, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people critique a given band with a dismissive “that sounds like Sabbath.” Iommi and friends are obviously the most influential band in heavy metal history and there are plenty of stoner groups that contribute nothing but “Hole in the Sky” rewrites, but such assertions always feel like superficial tags applied to any hard rock that is vaguely slow and groovy. Groups like Trouble, Saint Vitus, and Candlemass were unambiguously inspired by Master of Reality and Sabotage, but they pushed the boundaries of darkness, melancholy, and tempo to extremes never realized or even attempted by the downtuned blues Brummies.

So I should hate Sleep for their blatantly intentional Black Sabbath homages, right? I mean “Dragonaut,” this album’s opener and the band’s best known song, is basically the verse riff from “Lord of This World” and the opening riff from “A National Acrobat” glued together and bookended by a bunch of aimless lead guitar and bass wah. Yet something about it still feels original. There are probably as many bands ripping off “Dragonaut” nowadays as there are that Xerox their dads’ copies of Paranoid. While Sleep is more obvious about their roots than their fellow forebears, they still pushed the stoner doom genre to previously unexplored frontiers.

For starters, Sleep’s songwriting method is much looser and more interpretative than Sabbath’s ever was. The first six Sabbath albums often utilized unorthodox structures and random tempo shifts but there was always some grounded riff or vocal line they could fall back on after a while. Sleep’s structures tend to be more fluid and atmospheric; you have songs like “Inside the Sun” and “Aquarian,” where tempos are constantly shuffled about, next to songs like the title track and “From Beyond,” where the musicians will ride and develop a single riff for minutes on end.

Going along with that, the band format has its own set of tweaks. Seeing how Sleep was operating as a trio to Sabbath’s quartet (quintet if you count the string of keyboardists hiding backstage), the riffs and instrumental sequences have even more prominence as there is no frontman constantly demanding attention. But while bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros has a tenth of Ozzy’s charisma and his vocal lines often seem construed as afterthoughts compared to Matt Pike’s domineering guitar work, his voice has more substance than he lets on. He proves to be surprisingly adaptable as “Dragonaut” features his signature chanting tenor, while other tracks like “Evil Gypsy/Solomon’s Theme” put in a harsher bellow. Add in the flimsy yet firm foundation set by drummer Chris Hakius and you’ve got a lineup that earns its own set of wannabes.

Finally, the atmosphere and lyrics on Sleep’s Holy Mountain have also become their own clichés separate from Sabbath. “Into the Void” may have ‘rocket engines burning fuel so fast’ and “Iron Man” has its titular character ‘turned to steel in the great magnetic field,’ but those stories had real world subtexts; we never see how the Iron Man transformed or what the astronauts found in said Void. Sleep takes the ideas a step further; reality is completely forsaken in favor of escapist stoner fantasies that detail space dragons, reptile masters, and magic potions. Geezer Butler may have penned the most famous odes to weed and cocaine but when your friendly neighborhood stoner band writes the ten millionth tune about Puff the Magic Dragon, leave him out of it.

Sleep’s Holy Mountain may be the poster boy for the “sounds like Sabbath” stoner doom movement but there is no reason why it shouldn’t be seen as a distinct monolith in itself. The trio’s uniqueness is more obviously displayed on the infamous Dopesmoker and spinoff bands like Om and High on Fire, but their second full-length is something special thanks to a tripped out approach sustained by memorable riffs and stunning performances. Now if we could just get that long-awaited fourth album sometime soon, that’d be swell…

Highlights:
“Dragonaut”
“Aquarian”
“Holy Mountain”
“From Beyond”

Originally published at http://indymetalvault.com

Ever noticed how the easiest way to experience things you thought were impossible is to shut your eyes, fall asleep, snore loudly, and dream yourself into another world? When you wake up with bad breath and slobber on your pillow, an image hangs before your eyes for a few seconds before it begins to flee rapidly, leaving you wondering what it was exactly and whether you can go back there. On the other hand, some people seem to find that drugs can take a similar role, mixing up reality and cracking ajar parts of the brain that usually lie dormant or submerged. That's fine too, although the hangover is probably going to be worse than the trouble of wiping your pillow and brushing your teeth. Then there's a third option, which works pretty well for me - more reliably than dreaming and more safely than drugs - and that's music.

Somewhere between all those three is Sleep. Named for the dreamers, producing for the musos, and sitting with the stoners, the three-piece never made music purely for the purpose of writing songs or earning money (certainly not the latter), but for pulling away from the world and setting the mind free. As with the musicians' later projects High on Fire and Om, there is plenty of loose jam-like freeplay and lost song structures, although Sleep were arguably the most unpredictable beast of the three. Still rooted in hardcore punk (the guitar tone on 'Holy Mountain' has more than a bit of grit to it) and sipping from doom metal's imposing chalice, this album ploughs a distorted furrow between the slow and moody and the quick and savage in a less abrupt way than early Type O Negative, though with a similar effect, catapulting the listener from quiet contemplation to sudden excitement and back again. As the album drones on and on, you start to feel a bit drowsy and drop into a slumber...

...and find yourself bouncing gently on the back of a dragon as it journeys through outer space. The ride is not too rough, though there's a slight roaring in your ears from all the distortion. This kind of feeling occupies you all the way through your dream, as you lurch from 'Dragonaut' to lands of castles and creatures, then back out into space to watch the epic slow-motion image of the Earth exploding. You trudge slowly from one part of the dream to another, sometimes freaking yourself out when you think you see some weird shapes skittering about on the audio horizon, which somehow you know is the sound of Chris Hakius fucking around with his kit, though you're not sure how you know. When you feel yourself starting to freak out, a piercing screaming erupts from behind the rolling boulder that symbolizes Al Cisneros's bass; that screaming is Matt Pike setting fire to his guitar, smashing it into a million pieces, and throwing it up into space so that starlight catches the shards, sending dazzling rays all over the place and sending you into a confused frenzy.

While you sleep, the dream seems to take you on a journey, though you feel as if you hardly move at all. You are always going somewhere - it's difficult to say where exactly - but there's not much sense of direction to your travels. You start off with plenty of purpose and seem to know where you want to end up, sometimes moving at a fast pace, then you wander confusedly around for nearly a quarter an hour, before finally slowing to a crawl as you return to outer space, first 'Inside the Sun' and finally finding yourself looking back at Earth 'From Beyond'. The crawl is gradual and a little uncomfortable at first (you're on your hands and knees), but you start to get used to it, and then not to mind it, and even to enjoy it. At last, you find that you could go on crawling for much longer than you expected, since the motion is pleasing and tickles your body a little, especially the low, crushing notes that boom out with each movement...

...and slowly you wake up to the morning sun coming in through the curtains. You can remember the sensation a little, but not many specific parts about the dream: maybe the part with the dragon, maybe the part where you went underwater with the 'Aquarian' theme, though nothing was unpleasant exactly, a satisfying dream, the kind of dream you might like to have again - no rush however. You think that the dream might be good to have to let go of some stress or just to chill out a bit - yes, good to unwind, not to focus on too much - yes, good to unwind...

Sleep's Holy Mountain is stoner doom at its finest. The sound is very much inspired by the masters i.e. Black Sabbath, but has some original characteristics to it; for instance, the vocals. The vocals are rather strange. It's not really singing, but more like chanting, and whatever effects might be used in some of the songs, they make the vocals suit the music perfectly. Take for instance 'Aquarian'. The vocals (and the music, obviously) give you the impression that Sleep is playing underwater. It's... strange, but very cool, too. The chemistry between Matt Pike's incredibly heavy and bluesy guitar riffs, Al Cisnero's flamboyant basslines and Chris Hakius' hypnotic drumwork is amazing and gives the music a very magical feel to it, and despite the heaviness, it's a very easy listen. The songs belong together and flow so well together that before you know it, you're getting closer to the end of this amazing album.

Matt Pike's guitarwork is, as always, fantastic. Rocksolid, creative, memorable and indeed heavy as fuck. Al Cisnero's basslines aren't shy to take the lead. When in the spotlight, Cisnero launches an assault of wobbly basslines that dance from the highest to lowest ends of the bass guitar. Incredible talent! Chris Hakius, with his signature style(the hypnotic cymbal-banging), is solid as ever. This is what stoner drumming should sound like. It's difficult not to air-drum to Sleep's music.

The lyrics... Well, what can I say? There must have been some serious pot-smoking going on during the process of writing the music. The fantasy in the lyrics and the spacey music are very compatible. If the guys in Sleep decided to release a comic based on their music, I'd definitely check it out, because that would be some amazing shit right there. But, perhaps that would ruin the experience of this album a little bit. By listening to Sleep's Holy Mountain, you can let exercise your mind, your fantasy to the fullest. What do you see?

I can't highlight any songs on this album. They're all good. Like I said earlier, they belong together. All of them. This is the reason that I can't pick out any songs out of the bunch. Instead of doing so, I'll recommend the whole album. Non-stop. It's worth it!

As soon as you hear the intro to 'Dragonaut', you know you'll bein for one hell of a ride...

Compared to later Sleep albums I've heard, "Holy Mountain" initially comes across as the most commercially accessible which came as a surprise to me as I'd expected something inspired in equal parts by Black Sabbath and the Alejandro Jodorowsky movie of the same name as the album. Never mind - this is a good recording that balances enough doom metal and a poppy song-writing direction to appeal to an established fanbase and first-time listeners. The sound is not too clean neither too fuzzy or distorted, the texture of most songs is rough and crunchy, and lyrics draw inspiration from science fiction and fantasy, dream surrealism and hints of post-apocalypse Earth; if there be a Goldilocks zone in most exoplanetary solar systems where conditions are just right for planets in that zone to nurture life, then "Holy Mountain" might well lie in the Goldilocks zone between underground doom metal and mainstream heavy metal / hard rock.

"Dragonaut" is a jaunty introduction to the album proper with a deep fuzzy bass sound, distorted guitars and escapist visions of a giant reptile flying away into the wild blue yonder of the imagination. Around the halfway mark, the musicians finds their groove and for a short while are lost in their trance world of smart driving riffs. "The Druid" has a more hardcore punk influence which seems a bit strange for its subject matter but once the lyrics are out of the way the song is solid with a hard-hitting rhythm. "Evil Gypsy / Solomon's Theme" plunges quite deeply in an experimental / improvisational direction as the song takes unexpected detours into bursts of spontaneous instrumental jamming, lead guitar running riot, the drummer playing his heart out on his tom-toms and everyone just going for broke in the space of seven minutes.

After a short bluegrass melody, it's back to serious doom in "Aquarian" with a chuggy intro going into a slow-paced rhythm and bleached-out vocals. The lyrics give some indication of the theme of bird flight that Sleep bassist Al Cisneros would pursue with future band Om. Indeed, in the title track booming bass drones dominate the song and the vocals come close to the chanting style Cisneros would adopt for Om. Another track that features a strong crushing bass-dominated rhythm is "From Beyond" which by this point in the album is far gone in alternative sludge doom metal territory with a changeable structure that includes plenty of instrumental soloing and jamming, monotone robotic vocals in parts and a trance-like mood.

The album moves from a traditional song-based approach with hard choppy and crunching rhythms and a mix of melodic traditional doom metal and hardcore to a more moody sludge doom metal style with plenty of instrumental jamming, an intense meditative ambience at times, vocal chants and song structures that change a great deal and are unpredictable. This has the effect of drawing listeners further into the science fantasy world the lyrics conjure up. By the end of the album, listeners are probably more than ready to experience the strange surreal world of the Jodorowsky film "Holy Mountain". Well, first impressions can be very deceptive. If ever people want a crash course in doom metal that takes them from beginner level to far into the cosmos running the gamut from stoner rock to sludge and from songs to deep trance and almost ritualistic instrumental music in the space of less than an hour, Sleep's "Holy Mountain" is ideal training.

Sleep’s Holy Mountain “pushes itself out into space” from the warm primordial ooze of the fathomless imagination of this hasheeshian entity made manifest through distortion and the undying rhythm of reality. Combine this sound with a fearless and uninhibited musical ethos and the sheer will of these three musicians to ride their riffs deep into the expanses of a shared and exclusive internal cosmos, and what you get is pure artistic intention, preserved via analog for our listening pleasure.

“Dragonaut” blasts us off into this red-eyed universe far away from the mundane and banal earth of trivialities and meaningless routine shite. If you have ever seen the movie Gummo, “Dragonaut” sets the musical score as the two quasi-humanoid beings on bicycles propel themselves into the void that is that movie. Needless to say, this is one of the best and weirdest movies ever conceived, and splicing it with the otherworldliness of Sleep, even if it is just for that one MASSIVE riff, is some of the stoniest entertainment available to mankind. All of these songs are lyrically fantastic, traversing mythic realms of infinity and outer space until you are incinerated “Inside the Sun.” The guitar of Matt Pike has low end crunch to be fucking reckoned with, and Sleep’s pentatonic and heaving blues riffology tends to have a hypnotic effect upon the unsuspecting listener. The rhythm section of Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius is interwoven seamlessly as an eternal knot, breathing and undulating with the same might of the great old ones.

All of these songs are pretty much equally good, as they were all seemingly divinatory of the same cosmic channel of combined inspiration and determination. “Some Grass” is just a fun diddly separating the two titans that are “Evil Gypsy/Solomon’s Theme” and “Aquarian,” the latter finding you “trapped in a world under leagues of ocean.” There is truly no better lyric that could describe the weight of the riffage found in this bludgeoning, bong-ripping beast. I personally don’t listen to this album without smoking. This band and its music are the embodiment of the ancient sacrament and its holy ritual of divination of the imagination. Yes, the influences are obvious, but sometimes it’s not what you say, but how you say it. And Sleep says it with the guttural confidence of axe-wielding brutes, stoned and free to rule the riff-filled land.

“Look unto the rays of the new stoner sun rising” and issue in the rise of the Holy Mountain. This song is heavy as the balls of the gods, and the way they transition from the creeping desolation of the clean guitar interlude to the tidal wave of devastation that this title track becomes is simply masterful. “Inside the Sun” has some of the only fast riffing on this album, but fear not, my fellow weedians, inside is a land of anachronistic molten sludge that will flatten any memory of earth. Indeed, it’s the slow and depressive dirges here that make Holy Mountain the infernal temple of the stoner. That said, being stoned does not always mean being happy. Sometimes, weed will awaken a hate deep within, a hate so undeniable and pure that it will not be restrained. So you pick up a guitar and you play those fucking blues, man. Bands like Sleep and Electric Wizard use weed to amplify their innermost feelings of animosity or alienation in the form of bone-crushing heavy metal, regardless of how you wanna categorize it.

“From Beyond” and the instrumental “Nain’s Baptism” are monstrous downers that end this album in the heaviest possible fashion. Both of these skull splitters make clear the aforementioned desire to destroy, as they plod forth with all the heaviness of the elders. So fill your pipe and light up, as demonstrated on the back cover of this Holy Mountain, and ride the shockwaves that rattle the earth below with these hymns of doom.

With "Sleep's Holy Mountain", Sleep are not just stylistically inspired by Black Sabbath, but oftentimes lift bits of Sabbath's songs and insert them into something new. It sounds as if Mike Pike grew up listening to and playing Sabbath songs, got stoned one day, jammed with his band, and this was the result. Bits of Sabbath riffs get mixed in with bursts of creativity. Frequently throughout the album I'll hear a bit of a Sabbath song, causing my mind to instantly expect the rest of that song, but instead something different happens. It can actually get pretty annoying.

That said, the album is somewhat enjoyable. The band clearly knows how to play together and construct a song. Pike also comes through with some quality solos that are all his own. When the Sabbath rip-offs aren't present sections of this album, they do in fact sound like something an early Sabbath could have written that was never recorded.

I think part of the reason people enjoy "Sleep's Holy Mountain" (besides pot) is for the amateur appeal. With the rough production and sometimes sloppy/unoriginal playing, it strikes the listener as something one of their own friend's bands could have recorded. If said friend had in fact recorded it, the listener would be thoroughly impressed. This kind of appeal can help the listener identify more closely with the musicians and is often looked for in metal. For me, however, that doesn't elevate the album anywhere above mediocre.

Tony Iommi once famously said that Sleep, out of all stoner doom bands out there, most "embodied the spirit of early Sabbath," and from the opening head-nodding notes of 'Dragonaut' through to the slowly capitulating doom of closer 'Nain's Baptism,' that spirit echoes on down the Holy Mountain, one of the best records to come out of the burgeoning 70's revival scene two decades ago.

Unlike Kyuss, Monster Magnet, and Cathedral, Sleep holds back nothing. There are no concessions whatsoever on this record. The riffs are heavy, deep, and catchy, often loose, sometimes sloppy. The lyrics are uninhibited stoner fantasy. The drums bash with hypnotic monotony. The bass wobbles all over. When they hit a groove, a pocket, like they do at the three-minute mark of 'Dragonaut,' they go full-force, swinging like no one has since almighty Sabbath themselves. Weed becomes essential, it adorns all aspects of the record, from the cover art and insert, to the lyrics, to the music itself. Al Cisneros once telling Dig of Earache to smoke first before listening to their demos.

And while Sabbath holds sway, there is some Blue Cheer, some Thin Lizzy, lots of Trouble and Saint Vitus, and whereas it is tempting to think of Sleep as unabashed homage (they were teenagers at the time after all), there is something more to them than mere photocopy and pastiche. What makes Sleep timeless, so that their music has endured beyond themselves or even OM and High On Fire really, is that they took a series of easy 70's templates and in their enthusiasm for them, generated something uniquely their own. No other stoner record sounds like this, while it is close to Sabbath, it sounds like Sleep, it is their own.

'Dragonaut' is perhaps the most accessible tune here, adhering to more conventional song structures and containing several dope head-nodding riffs that kaleidoscope into one of the most memorable metal songs in history. 'The Druid' is stoner menace, the song you feel a little tweaked out listening to as Al Cisnero's warped vocals bark out at you about dark magic and evil wizards. His bass takes the fore too, harnessing and creating a mighty tension before the riffs kick back in. 'Holy Mountain' is the heaviest song on here, slow and impactful, the sound of a funereal caravan trudging across the impenetrable desert scorching beneath a thousand astral suns. Matt Pike's riffing is so hypnotically perfect, you could lose yourself in it, particularly during the seemingly endless interlude, a moment that just builds and builds before drowning you in cascading waves of heaviness. This song, more than any other, escapes the clutches of Sabbath to sound entirely of its own.

Many thanks here are due to the production, which is unabashedly heavy yet not suffocatingly so. Whereas many stoner doom bands try to outdo one another in the heaviness department, Sleep steps back and lets their songs breathe. There is a vital separation between the instruments instead of the usual wall of sound production. You can hear every note of Matt Pike's sludgy riffs and ringing solos but also catch Al Cisnero's bass underscoring all, moving in deft counterpoint and harmony. Chris Hakius's drums are expertly recorded, his signature hypnotic ride cymbal up front carrying the rhythm while the rest of his kit lays back, filling out the sound. This was one of the rare cases where Earache pretty much released an album as is, allowing Billy Anderson's demo production to essentially become the album master. That's a testament to both the band's vision and his excellent skills as a producer.

In summation, if Tolkien-ish lyrics sung over druggie riffs emanating through walls of Orange amplification is for you, you've probably already taken the climb up Holy Mountain and worshiped with Sleep at the shrine of Sabbath. If not, it's a journey worth taking. More essential even than ascending the Dopethrone of Electric Wizard or descending deep into the bowels of Sky Valley with Kyuss.

While other albums are cited as much more influential to the genre of stoner metal, it seems that “Sleep’s Holy Mountain” influenced just about every pot smoking stoner metal band that came after it.

It must be said that any fan of doom or stoner would enjoy this, but without a doubt anyone who enjoyed Black Sabbath’s doom metal days, will absolutely love this. If almost to show how much Sabbath influence there is on this album, the opening track “Dragonaut”, ends in a bass solo not all that far off from the one on “N.I.B.”. And if that wasn’t enough, the second track “Druid” sounds much like “Electric Funeral”. And with this clear love of Black Sabbath established, the listener now knows what they are in store for.

But Sleep isn’t merely a 2nd rate Black Sabbath style band. This whole album is riff packed, easily flowing giant. “Holy Mountain” can be listened from end to end, not because all the songs are good, but because this flows so easy from song to song. In fact the only time you know you are done with a song is at the end, when there is nothing else to follow it.

There is however the production of the album. Don’t take it the wrong way, it’s good, but it’s definitely an acquired taste. The instruments are all clearly in the mix, and that’s not the problem, or more accurately, the minor annoyance. The mic seems to be set up far from the actually playing, giving a definite spacey vibe. Another thing that be an acquired taste is Matt Pike’s vocals, which are highly synthesized and have almost are sound unnatural.

Overall, “Sleep’s Holy Mountain” is by far Sleeps greatest, and most accessible album, then again almost anything is accessible compared to a single 52 minutes song/album. So for any stoner metal fan, or doom metal fan, or even someone who just happens to really really like Black Sabbath, this album is absolutely recommended.

Soooooo I was shopping at FYE and had Sleep in mind while browsing their selection of metal. Hiding behind a bunch of bullshit was Sleep's Holy Mountain. I was hoping to pick up Dopesmoker since I heard so much about it but they didn't have it so I settled on this. I'll admit that I was a little hesitant getting this because I had no idea what to expect but I discovered how awesome this album really is.


Simply put, this album is an essential slab of doom. All songs have their unique characteristics that make them stand out in their own way. I absolutely love the riffs that Matt Pike has created, very memorable and awesome. Al knows how to deliver the damn best vocals too. As a whole this album starts off with the best songs first. Every song upto
and including "Aquarian" could easily be considered worthy of it's own single release, with the exception of "Some Grass" which is a short instrumental. "Dragonaut" is a good choice for the opening track because it starts off easy and gradually builds up into a bluesy, mid-paced song preparing you for the rest that's to follow. For me this CD can be divided up into 2 sections, the 1st ending and the second one beginning with track 6, "Holy Mountain". This is kind of strange because on the back there's also a gap between "Aquarian" and "Holy Mountain". hmm. The reason I say this is because the first half of this album is very different than the second half. The first half being more straight forward and delivering the goods without delay. The second half is slower and the songs are longer. Take for example "Holy Mountain" and "From Beyond", they have a combined length of 19 minutes. But don't be imtimidated by their length. Both songs are repetitive but that doesn't take away from their value. In fact I like that these 2 tracks are longer because there's more to enjoy that way. This album ends with the other instrumental, "Rain's Baptism". Just like "Dragonaut" started the album gradually, this song prepares you for the silence that comes when any CD is done playing. A good choice for the closing track because it is very mellow and soothing.


Time to discuss the non-musical aspects of this album; production and cover art. The production certainly sounds raw and primitive but this fits the music perfectly giving off an oldschool vibe that gives the impression that this was recorded back in the 70's. I really like the cover art on here, it's something that you can look at for a while without getting bored. You can find everything on there from angels and demons to planets, the sun, magic mushrooms, and, of coure, the serrated leaves of the holy cannabis plant. This is the only album I've heard by Sleep but I can tell you that I've discovered a really amazing band. I can also tell you that you'll love this album.