After years of worshipping at the altar of the riff, I'm finally gonna see Sleep on Saturday. Sleep, dude. The dudes who wrote Jerusalem, AKA Dopesmoker, which received three different releases (so far) and all of which have commendable properties. Personally, the latest release, under the name Dopesmoker (the album's original title during recording), does a great job of highlighting the dynamic range of what skeptics, amateurs, and squares might call a boring exercise in repetition, but I still prefer Jerusalem, truncated as it is. The unity of sound lends to the religious/meditative quality that, I think, forms the backbone of the whole album.
I'd be willing to admit that my preference could be a matter of familiarity, but shit, I've spent a whole lot of time listening to this record in its various incarnations, and this ain't mere nostalgia. But it doesn't matter. All that matters is the riff, or rather the Riff, and Sleep has perfected it in our lifetime. A thousand other stoner rock or doom bands could write hour-long songs and none of them would approach the unwittingly orthodox masterpiece that is Sleep's Dopesmoker. This probably ain't the first time I've talked about this record, and I hope it won't be the last; maybe next time I'll have something more interesting to say.
Anyway, adios for now, folks. Get high, listen to Jerusalem/Dopesmoker, and act accordingly. Or don't, and just experience the music. It's your life, after all. Don't let some random dude tell you how to live it.
No comments:
Post a Comment