With new incarnation, stoner doom metal legends Sleep sail on

The language of the archetypal stoner doom band Sleep (Fri/25 and Sat/26 at the Fillmore, SF, more info here) is a litany of outrageous portmanteaus and neologisms, in which “Marijuanauts” and “CBDeacons” exist in a world perpetually shrouded by smoke from burning “hashteroids.” To describe their new lineup, may I propose a new addition to the Sleep glossary—“Ship of THCseus?”

Only founding bassist Al Cisneros has remained in the San Jose-rooted band since their last album, 2018’s lumbering and spectacularly heady The Sciences. Cisneros declined to be interviewed, and the band’s new rhythm section declined to speak on why guitarist Matt Pike and Jason Roeder are no longer in the band (Roeder’s departure likely stems from the recent reunion of his most famous project, local art-metal legends Neurosis).

Some fans flat-out refuse to see the band without Pike, which seems small-minded given the pedigree of the new blood. The drummer is Dale Crover of the Melvins, while the guitarist is Bubba Dupree of Void. Both were there during the early-‘80s slowing of hardcore punk, a trend that would eventually yield burly stoner-doom beasts like Sleep. 

“It’s not a million miles away from certain things that I do anyway,” says Dupree, “so it wasn’t really a stretch.”

It’s no coincidence, perhaps, that their new album is called Hempispheres—named in part for Hemispheres by Rush, the great Canadian prog-metal band who recently had to deal with replacing their impossibly virtuosic drummer and conceptual leader Neil Peart. 

Many Rush fans were dismayed by the prospect of a Peart-less Rush. Cisneros and Dupree, both of whom caught Rush on their recent tour with new drummer Anika Nilles, are not among them.

“I think Rush and Pink Floyd are Al’s two biggest things beside Black Sabbath, and we all bonded over that, for sure,” Dupree says. “Dale and I had to come up with a list of classic rock records for some other thing, and there was so much overlap that we had to make some trades. And it wasn’t even obvious choices—it was things like Humble Pie.”

Crover had played with Cisneros in the late-2000s band Shrinebuilder; he joined the new incarnation of Sleep first, recording on some scratch demos that still featured Pike. Once the burly and often shirtless guitarist left, Crover floated the idea of hiring Kim Thayil, late of Soundgarden, who brought the ‘70s-metal goods to the band’s mannerist grunge style; Thayil in turn directed Crover to Dupree.

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 “And that was it,” Crover says. “Next thing I know, we’re in a studio with Bubba making the rest of the record.”

The new music is leaner than past Sleep behemoths like Holy Mountain or their hour-long signature song “Dopesmoker,” less of a mythic religious text crowned in weed smoke and more of a straightforward hard rock record.

“It’s not like all of a sudden we’re a safe pop band or something,” Dupree says. “It’s still very Sabbath worship, very true to the band.”

One aspect of Sleep’s music that’s stuck around since the beginning is Cisneros’s idiosyncratic use of language, not least his outrageous puns; with his voice pushed closer to the front of the mix closer than ever, coinages like “THSea” and “Dagobud” stick out like the trailing end of a hemp wick.

“There’s a song called ‘Whole Wheat Mountain,’” Crover says. “Those guys have always had a sense of humor and also their own language, which I kind of tapped into a long time ago. There’s a lot of inside jokes. Al has a really funny sense of humor, and we love him for it.”

The band’s two-night gig at the Fillmore brings up memories—it’s the first place Crover found a job when he moved to San Francisco in the late 1980s as part of the Melvins.

“My job was, like, OK, you gotta stop people from smoking pot—at, like, a reggae show,” Crover says. “I’m sure they probably lightened up by now. As soon as we start playing in a place like that, I get a contact high.”

Cannabis remains central to Sleep’s music, and though Cisneros still partakes in the substance compared to so many different religious symbols throughout the band’s career, the two other band members are more cultural Weedians than practicing ones.

“I’ve smoked fields of marijuana in my past,” Crover says. “Having any more would be greedy.”

SLEEP Fri/25 and Sat/26 at the Fillmore, SF. More info here.

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