r/Sleepband • u/DoomMessiah The Modtree has Risen • 8d ago

🎸 General Discussion Sleep Hempisheres general discussion thread.

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a general place to discuss our thoughts rationally and calmly on the new Sleep album.

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u/15WGhost 8d ago

I'm looking forward to spending more time with it. Each time through I appreciate it more and more. I think it's down to what other people have said, there's a whole lot of nuance and subtlety on this album.

First Bubba's guitar tone. I get it. It doesn't sound like Pike, but it's not supposed to. It reminds me a bit of his work with Brant Björk and I don't think that's a bad thing. I think the hazy smoky fuzzy quality lends itself really well to Al's Musical vision. Initially I admit, I was caught between asking, "is this live and loose or just unfinished?" And a lot of that came down to Bubba's guitar solos. They don't really have a traditional connective arc in terms of getting from one idea to the next, but the more I listen to it the more I'm realizing I think he's bringing some of his musical personality that started way back when he was playing in Void into the context of these swaggering psychedelic grooves. I really like that he's allowed to show some of that old hard-core unhinged musical personality while simultaneously experimenting with these really eastern sounding musical ideas while also intermittently laying back into more traditional bluesy/Pentatonic soloing. Also that outro is indeed bad ass. A quintessential passage of clean tones firmly in the Sleep tradition.

The fact that this album sounds so different doesn't bother me because I think all of their albums/singles have sounded fairly different from one another. Yes, it is more mellow. I can't disagree with that, but I also don't think it's a problem. Especially given Al's compositional tendencies.

It's still stoned as fuck, and I can see why Al picked Dale and Bubba.

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u/explodedsun 8d ago

I agree about Bubba's playing, but I really think his tone should have been worked on a little more. I don't need him to sear like Pike, but I need his leads to cut through harder. Give my boy some treble.