DOOM^{or be doomed}

Sleep - Dopesmoker

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!?!- 100%

Perhaps it's just the fact that these days I'm a sedated doom fiend, but whereas hearing this a few years ago (or rather, the slightly tamer and shorter version, Jerusalem) left me kinda bored and scratching my head, this version in all of it's glorious-ness has just totally owned my soul, flatlined my brain waves and just SHAT ON MY HEAD.

Yep, this is an absolute beast of an album, definitely one of those love it or hate it type deals, but I'm in the former camp and therefore it's pretty much perfect. If the idea of "Excellent doom riffs shitting on you for an hour" makes you do a little sex wee, if you smoke two ounces of weed a day, if you have shrine to Black Sabbath in your living room, then you will love this record. You will shit bricks upon hearing it. And I guess that's what this review is for, because if you don't like the idea of excellent doom riffs shitting on you for an hour then you should seriously GTFO.

The whole thing is pretty much perfect, and indeed sometimes the awesomeness is hard to fully behold; I liken it to looking at the sun with your eyes wide open- it's too bright for your puny eyes. Well, this album could perhaps be described as the audial equivalent of this- the sound is simply to fucking HUGE for any sort of proper comprehension. It's hard to describe exactly how I felt when the clean break, well, broke and an absolutely massive, MASSIVE beast of a riff just came along and slapped me around with it's epic cock. This was then followed by another, even more awesome riff (worth noting that the epic amounts of repetition here means that every huge/monolithic/awesome/etc riff can be enjoyed for a rather long time), which is then followed by a solo that will make most people cream their pants.

This formula is repeated throughout, and with great success. None of that 'verse/chorus/verse/chorus' crap, Sleep develop the rather revolutionary structure of riff/even better riff/even better riff and so on and so forth. It's hard to say much more about the riffs without relying on some overused, pointless cliches, (various references to big things, talk about weed etc) but they're really freaking good. Worth noting that everything else is equally as massive, of course- hell, the artwork for one; truly spectacular indeed- have no idea what a three headed horse has to do with this album, but I guess I'll just keep listening until the knowledge is imparted into my astral subtle body, or something like that anyway. Furthermore, the vocals are epic, admittedly Navy_Blue_Vicar has summed up the awesomeness far, FAR better then I ever could, but suffice to say that everything about them is awesome- the one note-ness of them for one is just purely awesome, and the lyrics are pure gold. Long, epically sustained notes that would almost be operatic if it wasn't for the sheer monotony of it (which again, is awesome).

Worth noting that the drums and bass, which get basically no mention in the rest of my review, are also massive/huge/monolithic/glacial and what not. The bass tone is simply massive (totally comes out during the epic guitar solos), and the drummer has a rather awesome style, keeping everything relatively tight and doing some pretty interesting patterns (especially considering the fact that the song is slow enough as is).

Yeah, so basically this is probably the best song I've ever heard, truly a massive beast that's totally befitting the kind of "DUDE... THAT WAS HUGE" stereotype that people associate with stoners. A religious (or riffligious? maybe?) experience that is undoubtedly the highest achievement by anyone in the history of music EVER. Everyone must get this; those who don't should be euthanised post haste, essential listening.

NOTE: I think there's another song on this release? I've heard it once or twice, it's certainly not bad but I normally just start.


By: C.Y.