Yes, it’s different. That’s the most resounding impression Hempispheres seems to have given Sleep‘s established fanbase. The most worshiped of stoner metal outfits announced back in June that they had split with founding guitarist Matt Pike after unceremoniously booting drummer Jason Roeder during the pandemic (he’s back with Neurosis now, which is good news, both for that band and the world in general), and I don’t know about your social media, but mine pretty well melted as a result. The first single “Have Spacesuit Will Travel,” which features as the opening track on the album, was divisive, and since its release last week, Hempispheres has proven the same, with ‘no Pike no Sleep‘ loyalism on one hand to what Sleep were to ‘this is the best thing they’ve ever done’ on the other with is-what-it-is shrugs between. But the one thing Sleep‘s surprisingly-uptight-for-a-bunch-of-stoners following can agree on: it’s different.

Comprised of five songs running 38 minutes and issued like its 2018 predecessor, The Sciences (review here), through Third Man Records, the Toshi Kasai-helmed Hempispheres sees founding bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros leading a two-thirds revamped lineup, with guitarist Bubba Dupree (Void, Brant Bjork, etc.) and drummer Dale Crover (Melvins, Altamont, etc.) completing the trio, both making their first appearances with the band.

From the outset, it is a bassier sound, and between that and the hypnotic repetition in songs like the 11-minute “Arrival of the Industry Ships” and subsequent say-it-out-loud-to-get-it closer “Whole Wheat Mountain / Well Baked,” it’s gotten comparisons to Cisneros‘ work in his other band, Om, whose last album, Advaitic Songs (review here), came out in 2012, and fair enough for the mellower vibe that persists across the span here. But Om isn’t Sleep, and Hempispheres isn’t Om either. It’s just something Sleep haven’t been before. So was The Sciences.

Sleep doesn’t need me to help them sell records and honestly, whether people like a thing is low-stakes to my own experience of it, but if you write off Hempispheres or the band entirely because Matt Pike (whom I’m pretty sure didn’t get screwed over; there’s no lawsuit, for example) isn’t there, it’s your own loss. It’s the nature of modern fandom that change engenders reaction, positive and negative, but as “The Morrisist” plods out its addled mystique, with Dupree‘s guitar showing enough flexibility to veer into psychedelia, Cisneros delivering lyrics with weedy puns and obscure references a-plenty, the affect is still there. “Have Spacesuit Will Travel” also demonstrates this as a strength.

Where The Sciences was, on balance, a meat-and-potatoes kind of record as regards big riffs and shred, Hempispheres dares to have its own persona. Dupree, admirably, isn’t trying to bring to Sleep what Matt Pike did, and the songs work better for that. But his contributions help Sleep sound exploratory here in a way they never have. They jam. The album sounds like a good portion of it was recorded live. They left in what sounds like overmodulated fuzz in the second half of “Arrival of the Industry Ships,” resulting in an almost keyboardy effect (and for all I know it’s a keyboard). It’s raw in the way of beginnings. It’s a new character because it’s a new band. In this way, Sleep acknowledges its own past while weedvolving into something else.

Prior largesse being traded out for greater reach makes more sense in the spaces Hempispheres covers, and even more in light of Toshi Kasai‘s production, and those who heard or saw Dupree with Brant Bjork at any point in the mid-to-late-2010s will have a better context for understanding the style of fuzz he brings to, say, the flowing second half of the title-track on this record, and while they never actually dip as far into minimalism as Om have gone in that band’s history, the ending of “Whole Wheat Mountain / Well Baked” pushes deep into bass/drum fluidity, with lighter notes from some kind of keys or other over top, continuing to claim new ground for Sleep even on their way out.

Given that the roots of Sleep extended more than 35 years back, their will to try and indeed to become something new is not to be understated in terms of what Hempispheres accomplishes, even as the album enacts many of the latter-day tropes of their sound, whether that’s in the weed-and-Iommi-worship lyrics, marked by deep-running wordplay and the aforementioned referential bent. These are signature elements of Cisneros‘ songwriting, and ultimately that is what’s being most showcased throughout these five cuts, in combination (and balance) with a jammier sensibility. They’re not pounding you with the riff until you’re numb. but rather turning these parts into a mantra to be inhaled and exhaled by the listener as much as they are by the band playing them.

“Arrival of the Industry Ships,” which has a genuine swirl as it moves through its middle and the extra-hairy distortion shows itself circa six minutes in, taking the place of Cisneros‘ subdued toying-with-monotone vocals in the mix, is a perfect example of this, but mostly because it’s the longest song and so makes the starkest representation. The truth of Hempispheres is that Sleep dig in at the start of “Have Spacesuit Will Travel” and breathe weedy vapor from there through the taken-so-far-down-it’s-not-there-anymore ending of “Well Baked.” And with that flourish of keys at the finish, my biggest question is how longterm Sleep are thinking at this point.

That is to say, what are they going to do with this newfound malleability in their approach? They’ve boldly transcended what’s expected of them in both makeup and sound with Hempispheres, and whether you like the album or not doesn’t make that any less true. How much will they tour, and even more than that, will it be another eight years before their next album comes? And the latter question I absolutely ask because they come across like such a working band here, building momentum to keep moving forward rather than basking in the genre elements that, indeed, they helped pioneer in shaping stoner metal.

I don’t have those answers and it’ll be a few years before anyone does, but if The Sciences was a monument, Hempispheres feels like less of a precious thing, more like these songs might change shape and even intention as they’re played live for audiences hither and yon. Again, I’ve no idea what the future will bring, but I’m not about to slag on a legendary band for, what, unexpected growth? Doing something different that’s still stoned to the gills? I understand some listeners might feel like they’ve had the rug pulled out from them, but seeing that as an automatic negative is a blinder to the potential laid out in this material.

I can’t help but wonder if the response wouldn’t have been gentler if they’d toured first, but it’s moot at this point. Some will come around with time and others will move on. Chaos-bound change being the order of the universe, I recognize this is no insight, but that Sleep are too busy stonerjamming to give a crap is perhaps the band’s most consistent aspect of all. Take comfort in that if you can and feel you need to.

Sleep, Hempispheres (2026)

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Tags: Hempispheres, Sleep, Sleep Hempispheres, Third Man Records

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2026 at 11:16 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.