Sleep – The Sciences
Doom-metal originators’ first new full-length album in 20 years.
THIRD MAN | CD DL LP
THIS SAN JOSE STONER TRIUMVIRATE, whose 63-minute one-track masterpiece Dopesmoker was refused release by London Records in ’98, and only came out in its definitive form on Southern Lord in 2012, dropped this comeback record unannounced, with minimum fuss, on 20 April – aka 4/20, as in International Weed Day. After splitting up in disillusion over the London affair, Al Cisneros’s crew reconvened in 2009 for sporadic activity, and have customarily not rushed into nailing The Sciences, nor departed from their rubric of Burroughsian ganja myth-spinning (see Marijuanaut’s Theme; The Botanist), set to eardrum-busting, down-tuned slo-mo jams. Of the three monolithic pieces that thunder past the 10-minute mark, Sonic Titan’s the pick, its circling, amps-overdriven insistence sufficient to induce paralysis even in a non-inhaling person, and thus fully warranting its all-conquering title. The pyramids-evoking Giza Butler should also press any Sabbath buff’s buttons.
Hear the new studio version of Sonic Titan below, plus Spotify embed of the whole album: