Customer Reviews

Beauty for Ashes

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This record is one of the most progressive things out there right now. It snakes though a landscape of musical textures, slipping in and out of heavy rock and reflective acoustic melo-dramas. If you can imagine a combination of Tool and Pink Floyd you've found this record.

Matt Pike's High On Fire project is such a smashing success, I became really curious to see what the other two former Sleep members were doing. I couldn't find anything on what bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros was up to. But I soon found that drummer Chris Hakius was playing in a new band called The Sabians. And even more interestingly, the band included yet another former Sleep member- the forgotten Justin Marler, their one-time second guitarist. Justin is the Pete Best of Sleep, he only played on the first album and then disappeared. He was long gone when Sleep finally achieved their modest success. Believe it or not, soon after he left Sleep he actually joined a monestary and lived there in seclusion for seven years.

Anyway, I wasn't expecting this to sound like Sleep II (that'd be High On Fire) but I don't care for it much. If anything, it sounds more like Tool Jr. It's very earnest and non-threatening. I imagine Marler's life was greatly enriched by his time in the monestary, and he's left all of his anger and dark feelings behind. That's great for him, but personally I prefer music that has at least a touch of anger and darkness to it.

UPDATE 4/8/05

My prayers have been answered: Chris Hakius has reunited with Al Cisneros under the name Om. It's just the two of them, a duo of drums and very distorted bass. They sound very similar to Sleep's Dopesmoker/Jerusalem phase. Their first album, "Variations On a Theme" is already available.