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Sleep, The Sciences: The Pterodactyl Flies Again

sleep the sciences

In their absence between 1998 and 2009, Sleep became the stuff of legend. The stoner metallers were unquestionably ahead of their time in 1993’s genre-defining Sleep’s Holy Mountain (reissue review here), but it was the 2003 release of Dopesmoker (discussed here) through Tee Pee Records that seemed to solidify them as objects of reverence. Previously issued through The Music Cartel in an edited form as Jerusalem (and before that, self-bootlegged by the band), the narrative behind the release of Sleep inking a deal with London Records only to take the money from their recording budget, blow it on weed, and then essentially turn in an album unreleasable to a mass market is well documented and has become one of the great tall tales of underground heavy.

This, coupled with the success bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros went on to find in the then-duo-now-trio Om and guitarist Matt Pike likewise achieved fronting the more aggressive High on Fire, only increased Sleep‘s profile, and when Cisneros and Pike reformed the band with NeurosisJason Roeder on drums and began playing shows again in 2009, the speculation of new studio material was immediate and nearly as deafening as the volume of the riffs emanating from the stage. Sleep had gone from a cult footnote in the Earache Records catalog to headlining festivals and tours, and with their unabashed worship of Black Sabbath, weedian mythologies and massive influence, they became a genuine guiding force for a new generation of bands and fans alike. The last decade of heavy simply would not be the same had they not reformed, and as their first studio full-length in 15 years, the six-track The Sciences is all the more a landmark in one of the genre’s most storied and pivotal careers.

Is there any way The Sciences isn’t the biggest heavy underground release of 2018? Look at the sheer circumstances of its arrival. On April 19, word was put out in morse code that the next day Sleep would release an album. Bam. There was no advance press, no track premieres through NPR or Rolling Stone or other major outlets with smirking treatises on the group’s importance, no months-long agony of trickled out information: the tracklisting in one press release, the artwork in another, a teaser video, etc. It simply wasn’t there and then it was. How many heavy bands could get away with that and expect any kind of response? Sleep dropped a record like Beyonce drops records, and it absolutely worked. Issued through Jack White‘s Third Man Records, The Sciences dominated the high holiday of stoner idolatry, and while any release of this magnitude is bound to have detractors as well as proponents, it’s a basic truth regardless that for many listeners, this year will be defined by Sleep‘s 53-minute march to the riff-filled land. Rightly so.

There are a host of higher-profile offerings still to come in the next several months, from groups like Graveyard (who return after a much shorter hiatus), ConanClutchAncestorsYOBAll Them Witches and so on, but none of them orany of the others as yet announced will show up after a 15-year absence, and none will be released with the same kind of break-the-internet anti-fanfare fanfare as The Sciences, which it should be noted isn’t the first studio output Sleep have had since their reformation. In 2014, they had the lone track The Clarity (review here) as part of the Adult Swim Singles Series, and though it’s been four years, that would prove to be a crucial lead-in for The Sciences in preparing the audience and laying the groundwork for the album’s overall sound. The single was recorded by Roeder‘s Neurosis bandmate Noah Landis, and the LP is likewise — cover design by former Neurosis visual specialist Josh Graham is another line between the bands — and the style is consistent between the two. The Sciences works because it does not try to pretend the last 20-25 years didn’t happen. It doesn’t try to rewrite Dopesmoker. It doesn’t try to rewrite Sleep’s Holy Mountain or their preceding 1991 debut, Volume One.

In “Marijuanaut’s Theme” and “Giza Butler,” it embraces the same weed-and-riff-worship/Tony Iommi-as-deity (anyone remember that t-shirt?) mythology that Dopesmoker was essential in creating — “Marijuanaut’s Theme” has “planet Iommia” and an “Iommosphere” in its lyrics while “Giza Butler” speaks of an “Iommic Pentacost,” and riffs and weed, well, are just about everywhere lyrics are — but The Sciences is an honest look at Sleep in 2018. They know who they are as a band, they’ve crafted this aesthetic on stage over the last nine years, and rather than ignoring Pike‘s work in High on Fire or Cisneros‘ in Om or even Roeder‘s in Neurosis, the offering to the holy trinity of riffs, weed, and Black Sabbath presents its addled adorations in tales of blown-out space travels, reborn Antarctic legions set free from icecap prisons (based on a true story, from what I’m told), and a homeless guy living under a bridge getting stoned (ditto).

All of this arrives amid groove that somehow remains inimitable despite the fact that an entire generation of bands has and continues on a daily basis to directly emulate it. The nod isn’t immediate, as the opening title-track is three minutes of layered amp noise and feedback in a filthy-sounding but appropriate beginning to what follows, a church organ at the end and volume swell cutting sharply to the sound of a bong being hit and then the first crash of “Marijuanaut’s Theme,” which quickly establishes the thickness of tone, the rhythm and the distinct patterning and melodic delivery in Cisneros‘ vocals that will remain consistent throughout The Sciences and tie its songs together despite variations in theme and tempo.

At 6:39, “Marijuanaut’s Theme” is the shortest of the non-instrumental material — closer “The Botanist” is just a bit shorter and “The Sciences” itself, as the intro, is the shortest — but its position after the hypnotic feedback of the title-cut is pivotal in leading the way into the trio of “Sonic Titan,” “Antarcticans Thawed” and “Giza Butler,” all of which top 10 minutes and comprise the heart of the record, showcasing Pike‘s penchant for wild soloing has he layers across the right and left channels in Iommian tradition and the stoned serenity of Cisneros‘ vocals, which deliver “Sonic Titan”‘s only lines, “Look unto Zion though it can’t be seen/Man in the moon cannot help me see,” twice — and that’s it — after unfolding an entire narrative for “Marijuanaut’s Theme.”

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It’s worth noting that those lyrics have changed since a live-in-studio version of “Sonic Titan” appeared as a bonus track for the ’03 Dopesmoker release, and though he doesn’t really there, Cisneros plays the role of storyteller again in “Antarcticans Thawed” — which has also featured for years as part of live shows — and “Giza Butler,” crafting clever weed puns and twice referencing the “rifftree”; one imagines a sort of THC-laced yggdrasil dripping hash oil like maple sap. The characters in these songs — the Marijuanaut, the Antarcticans, and the guy living under the bridge on his “milk crate throne” who is presumably Giza Butler himself — make The Sciences a richer listening experience and deepen Sleep‘s overarching process of world-creation. Like any good science fiction, they’re setting the rules of their own universe, and it’s one of tonal depth and narrative arc alike. The Marijuanaut blasts to Planet Iommia; the Antarcticans board a skyship and sail off to parts unknown thereupon; Giza Butler smokes an ounce a day.

As much as Sleep are about what they’re about — see “riffs, weed and Black Sabbath” above; these may well be the sciences to which the title re(e)fers — there is a pervasive sense of craft in these tracks. They came together over a period of years and they sound like it. They are not haphazard or sloppy either in construction or execution, and even as “Sonic Titan” marches to its lyrics at about the halfway point and then riffs-out hypnotic before a madness of shredding soloing takes hold after 11 minutes into its total 12:26 and they cap with one of the record’s best nods, the plotted progression makes sense both on its own and leading into the opening riff of “Antarcticans Thawed.”

Spending its first two minutes on a linear build toward the first verse, “Antarcticans Thawed” again demonstrates the consciousness at work behind The Sciences, and as the longest inclusion at 14:23, the mid-paced plodder plays a special role in setting and maintaining the smoke-filled vibe. A somewhat more shouted vocal from Cisneros tops Pike‘s relatively languid central riff and the ride/crash work of Roeder, who has long not only done justice to the work of original Sleep drummer Chris Hakius, but also brought his own stamp to the material. He shines here, and if the album were to accomplish nothing else, it would still be worth making for getting the trio in this form on tape for more than just a single. As “Antarcticans Thawed” presses forth, it seems to get slower and slower until the Antarcticans sail off on the windship and Pike marks the occasion with a highlight solo. The central riff resumes and after a last verse, Roeder moves to a snare progression as the song gradually deconstructs itself in the guitar and bass, fading to silence ahead of the languid start of the 10-minute “Giza Butler,” which lasts for about the first two minutes before the chugging riff starts the verse and Cisneros begins his tale of the “shopping cart chariot” and the “rifftual commenc[ing] around the tree stump altar.”

There’s obviously humor at work here, but Sleep aren’t making fun so much as preaching to a converted who once took the advice “drop out of life with bong in hand” to heart. “Giza Butler” boasts the album’s standout lyric: “The pterodactyl flies again/Over emerald fields,” and a companion riff that makes it seem like a realistic possibility leading to the apparent summary of the entire point of view in the lines, “Marijuana is his light and his salvation/Harvest sustains the altitude within/Ends the rationing/Hocks the Ohaus Triple Beam,” as the central character gets rid of his scale and, seemingly, smokes the entire harvest. As “Giza Butler” stomps through its instrumental finish and lands after seven minutes into a highlight riff for the record as a whole, one might say Sleep are doing the same thing all throughout The Sciences. They’ve hocked the scale, gone all-in, and smoked the entire planet’s worth of weed in ritualistic fashion and in one sitting. The aforementioned leads and groove cap “Giza Butler” in an apex that could easily go another five or six minutes and not meet with any complaints, and residual noise gives way to the closing instrumental lumber of “The Botanist.”

A final nod to nod itself, it mellows out after a minute in and picks up with a relatively subdued solo — I saw someone on the social medias call it Matt Pike‘s “Maggot Brain”; not quite, but it’s choice work — before feedback seems to end and Roeder‘s drums restart at 4:16 to add an epilogue to the proceedings. The jam that ensues for the last two minutes of “The Botanist” is laced with noise and sounds improvised over that drum movement, and if it is off the cuff, all the better to leave on a moment of spontaneity on a full-length at least 15 years in the making. It shows that even after the distances traveled in these songs, there’s still a creative spark in Sleep. Who knows? Maybe they’ll do another record.

I won’t take away from the band’s past accomplishments. I refuse to. Sleep’s Holy Mountain is arguable as the greatest achievement in riff-led heavy outside of Black Sabbath‘s original lineup, and in both its legend and its over-the-top, barely-listenable course, Dopesmoker stands on a level of its own in power, concept, delivery and influence. However, The Sciences stands as the most sonically cohesive record Sleep have ever made. It’s the output of a band who know exactly what they want their material to do, how to make it do that thing and how to capture that process in the studio. It’s new Sleep, taking the lessons of the old and bringing them into a more modern context.

For a whole generation of their fanbase, The Sciences will serve as something like a new debut, and for older fans who were able to get into The Clarity or have seen them live since they got back together, it may or may not top what once was, but neither has it had 25 years of deification around it. Give it some time. The songs are memorable, the sound impressively weighted, and it’s got riffs, weed and Sabbath. There’s nothing more one could possibly ask of a Sleep record that The Sciences doesn’t bring to the table, and it’s an easy contender for album of the year. For many, it already was before they even listened.

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8 Responses to “Sleep, The Sciences: The Pterodactyl Flies Again”

  1. Hugh says:

    Should of put ‘The Clarity’ on the CD version as a bonus track, as not everyone collects vinyl… great album though all the same & worth the wait! :)

  2. Jose Humberto says:

    Happy more than happy , but at the same time wondering how long to wait untill next one

  3. NS says:

    The Dune references in Giza Butler are some of the most ridiculous lyrics ever written.

  4. kokojones says:

    Ha! I posted that Maggot Brain comparison statement.

    Spot-on review of this album. I was both very skeptical about this album but confident they wouldn’t release something subpar. I was honestly surprised how much I loved it right away, and repeat listens reinforce that.

  5. Become Just B says:

    It’s awesome when a release gets you as excited as this one. Total triumph.

  6. Joe says:

    I get most of Sleep’s lyrical references, but what the hell is “The pterodactyl flies again” alluding to???

    Probably something really well known that I will feel dumb about missing…

  7. Dan_the_man says:

    In case you missed it, check out Leagues Beneath released in last week or so: http://www.adultswim.com/music/singles-2017/59 It’s incredible. Can’t wait to see them live tomorrow.

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