Sleep returns in a cloud of heavy smoke
Guitarist Matt Pike can laugh about it now. In the ‘90s, his band Sleep made “Dopesmoker,” an album so radical that it got the trio kicked off their record label, led to their break-up, and yet ended up becoming one of the most acclaimed metal releases of the last two decades.
“We made a record that people didn’t get to hear until years later, after we broke up,” says Pike, who has spent the last decade fronting the power trio High on Fire. “We had a bigger following than ever, and no band! It’s like, where was everybody when we were actually touring?”
That situation is being rectified with a reunion of Pike and original Sleep bassist-singer-lyricist Al Cisneros, plus Neurosis drummer Jason Roeder, to perform a handful of shows devoted to the California trio’s influential ‘90s albums, particularly the 1993 “Holy Mountain,” the career-ending “Dopesmoker,” and its shorter but equally daunting companion piece, “Jerusalem.”
“We made a record that people didn’t get to hear until years later, after we broke up,” says Pike, who has spent the last decade fronting the power trio High on Fire. “We had a bigger following than ever, and no band! It’s like, where was everybody when we were actually touring?”
That situation is being rectified with a reunion of Pike and original Sleep bassist-singer-lyricist Al Cisneros, plus Neurosis drummer Jason Roeder, to perform a handful of shows devoted to the California trio’s influential ‘90s albums, particularly the 1993 “Holy Mountain,” the career-ending “Dopesmoker,” and its shorter but equally daunting companion piece, “Jerusalem.”
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