Sleep took Black Sabbath's heaviest, slowest moments and stretched them to their logical extreme. Matt Pike's massive riffs, Al Cisneros's droning bass and meditative vocals, and a shared obsession with marijuana culture produced music that was less about songs than about sustained, trance-like heaviness.
Dopesmoker, a single 63-minute track originally rejected by their label, is their defining statement and one of the most legendary recordings in heavy music.
Key Albums
One song. Sixty-three minutes. The ultimate stoner-doom statement.
Sabbath worship refined to its purest, heaviest essence.
A surprise comeback that proved the riff worship was undiminished.
Why They Matter
Sleep pushed doom metal to its most extreme and uncompromising point, and Dopesmoker became a cultural artifact that transcended the genre.