Back in print on limited-edition vinyl from Earache, remastered from the original tapes.

     Sleep's second album Sleep's Holy Mountain from 1993 is a hallmark in the stoner/doom/sludge/psych metal field, a gargantuan riff-feast set to trance inducing tempo that took Black Sabbath's slow motion acid rock and turned it into what would pretty much become the template for the drug doom sound that bands like Electric Wizard and Bongzilla would later explore. By now, metal fans know the storied history of Sleep, the major label woes, the hour-long one song album Jerusalem, the band's disintegration and the members going on to form High On Fire (in the case of Matt Pike) and Om (which featured the Sleep rhythm section of Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius).

     But after all of these years, this album still has a heavy magic about it, and every time I throw it on the turntable it continues to blow my third eye open with all its energized psych-rock freakouts that merge into massive droning doom metal, Cisneros' narcotized chanting, the drug-trip science fantasy lyrics that read like they came out of a beat up, dogeared 70's print of Edgar Rice Burrough's Chessmen Of Mars or John Norman's Tarnsman Of Gor, all space-faring dragonriders and insect caravans and intergalactic pilgrims in search of the ultimate weed, maaaaaaan. Sleep's riffs are still some of the heaviest ever, influenced by Iommi's playing in Sabbath but dipped in liquid lead, massive and grooving. "The Druid", instrumental "Some Grass", "Dragonaut", "From Beyond", all classic and crucial blasts of ultra fried, ultra heavy psychedelic doom. Adorned in a strange visual design that combines stoned-out drughaze band pics, eye-popping colors and Robert Klem's graffiti-esque, Keith Haring-influenced artwork. An essential album for anyone into doom metal, psych metal, and sludge