Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain (1992)^{Release ID: 746}

When it comes to stoner metal, Sleep are virtually mandatory a listen, right?  As I continue to spread my wings in The Fallen clan I am fnally getting around to a band that seem to get universal praise amongst peers.  It seems you simply cannot class yourself as a fan of doom/stoner metal without acknowledging the importance of Sleep.  I am not here to upset that apple cart either.  Based on this album at least, I like what I am hearing enough to commit to a review, and I will start off by saying that Sleep are a lot of fun to my ears.  Playing as an almost uber-organic jam session, I soon find myself not really caring about track listings or even individual songs, just enjoying the album overall instead.

Coming to the band via Om and the album Pilgrimage, wich I find to be a much more serious yet still thoroughly enjoyable release, Sleep are more like the cool Uncle who let's you have a sneaky can of ale round his house when you are fourteen as opposed to the more focussed family member that is Om.  I would go as far as to say that Sleep's Holy Mountain is even a sloppy record in places with the percussion going off on its own merry way on occasion.  However, this does not come as an unexpected thing in all honesty.  This is truly one of the most free-sounding records I have ever heard, that spontaneous feel to the record coupled with the relaxed atmosphere make for a very natural performance.  I dispute that this is only for people high on drugs (although I do have a strong English Breakfast Tea in my hand currently which is as potent as I get nowadays) but it is hard to not conjure that stereotype when listening to music like this.  The fact is that the music transcends the stereotype with pretty much minimal effort.

The casual playing and the previously mentioned cumbersome trajectory it takes just adds to the enamour I have with the album in all honesty.  Tracks such as Dragonaut, The Druid and the brilliant Inside the Sun are what Sleep are all about.  Zero fucks to give metal for folks who went shopping for fucks to give but the stores were all sold out.  You can throw Black Sabbath worship references all you want, and you'd be right, although I doubt it al that intentional.  However, you can also put on any Electric Wizard or Cathedral record and align Sleep with those modern doom references with just as much ease.  Shave off the instrumental tracks and the album comes up by half a mark on the scores too.

I first heard "Dragonaut" spliced to a weird movie called Gummo. I've never seen the full movie but the clip had these white trash kids (bad hair cuts, bad intentions) riding their bikes through some dead as fuck midwestern small town. I lived in a town like that. I was one of those kids. We maybe weren't as extreme as the kids in that movie (I guess they get up to some fucked up stuff in there), but yeah, that whole feeling that something is just very wrong about where you are... it left an impression. 

Anyway that was just my little Nostalgia trip. What is Sleep's Holy Mountain?  I describe it to people as "the best Black Sabbath album that is not actually by Black Sabbath, but is better than a lot of the albums that actually are by Black Sabbath" I think that I lifted that line from Daniel Bukszpan in The Complete Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal; a fucking excellent book I would reccomend to any Metalhead. I steal that description because I beleive it's just the perfect way to get this album across.  It's Master of Reality Pt. 2. Nowadays a lot of people know Sleep by Dopesmoker/Jerusalem and it's fun journey in it's own right, and it's the album the band wanted to make so I respect it, but this is better. This is lightning in a bottle. I think I play the bass line to "Dragonaut" everytime I pick mine up. 

Get the album. Do whatever helps you relax (not drugs, drugs are bad Ummkay, I'm talking about bubble bath and inscense here). Put this on, and RIDE THE DRAGON TOWARD THE CRIMSON EYE.

P.S. It's not just about Dragonaut. The whole album is filled with equally killer shit. "Druid", "Aquarian", "Solomons Theme", "Inside the Sun", etc. No bad choices.

One of the reasons I don’t like Trad Doom is because it is not inherently dark and melancholic like the rest of Doom. It’s not carried by gloomy atmospheres but rather slow riffage that sounds more akin to lethargic Heavy Metal. For me personally, if I’m gonna be listening to repetitive and lethargic music, it absolutely has to be emotionally or atmospherically evocative. In those instances, the plodding tempo works wonders to elevate the foreboding sense of despair or tragic melancholy. Otherwise, slow, lethargic music to me is just boring.

Sleep’s style of “Stoner Doom” is everything I dislike about Trad Doom multiplied and expanded upon. Slow, groovy, repetitive riffs that do nothing and go nowhere. No atmosphere, no emotion, the riffs even sound “happy” a good portion of the time. I don’t hate happy music (my J-Pop ratings can attest to that) but as far as slow, heavy music goes, happy is the last thing I want to hear. There is absolutely nothing “Doom” about this record, it’s just slow. Sections of improvisation are common, though they never stray from the formulaic riffs. The guitar solos in these sections are usually very poor as well.

The lyrics are almost interesting. A line or two will paint an intriguing picture of some fantasy desert land… but then it trails off into something completely unrelated, probably trying to evoke hallucinatory drug experiences. It ruins any sort of worldbuilding or narrative I think they could have otherwise succeeded in.

I’m going to throw out a wild claim, but I think if some people stopped listening to these sorts of albums while on drugs, they might realize how mundane they are without… outside influence. Not to say people can’t enjoy the grooviness of this sort of thing in total earnest, but I do believe it’s probably overrated due to that sort of influence.

“Sleep’s Holy Mountain” is the definitive Stoner Metal LP. There’s no weak spots, no flaws. Even the short acoustic instrumental works as a palette cleanser, and the sparse, minimalist moments just add to the dynamics which amplify the power of the loud parts, which of course fuel the album. All the elements are here: the Sabbath worship, the jamming, the ungodly sick bass tones, the (mostly) glacial tempos, the sage-like vocals, etc. This is the record to play for the Greys when they finally reveal themselves. Okay, getting into the details. First, the Sabbath influence. The main riff of “The Druid” is fairly similar to “Supernaut,” but rather than blend it in and make it indistinguishable, the riff is matched by a high-hat, just like the Sabbath song. Sleep can wear  the influence on their sleeve because they don’t totally rely on it. So the jamming... yeah, it’s all over the fucking place. I’ m not necessarily a sucker for that sort of thing, but with Sleep, it’s comparable to the improvisations on a jazz record. I wish I could think of a better way to phrase this, but it takes  you somewhere. Al Cisneros is an insanely good bassist. I can’t think of anyone who can play this loosely while still being completely locked in (not that Matt Pike and Chris Hakius are slouches by any means). Sleep manage to cover a lot of ground while remaining firmly in the Stoner Metal spectrum (and it’s Stoner, NOT Doom, because it’s not depressing, the style of the vocals, and of course, the jams, etc). “From Beyond” is cold and authoritative, 10 minutes which don’t drag. On the other hand, “Aquarian” is way more jovial and “Evil Gypsy” is just brutal.  My favorite track is probably “Inside the Sun,” which starts with a crude punk beat before collapsing into sludge and ultimately erupting into a Melvins style shout chorus. One more thing I want to mention is,  because the record was originally intended as a demo, it’s fairly raw. That being said, it adds to the organic nature, making you feel like you’re in the room the band. It just sounds REAL. I was pretty late to the party  in giving this record a full listen, which I regret, but the benefit to that is, even having heard dozens of records that have followed in its path, I can comfortably say that “Sleep’s Holy Mountain” is the head motherfucker of them all.