The Gates Of Slumber - The Awakening (Reissue)

Finally waveriders! This great album, the full-length debut of The Gates Of Slumber, was originally released by Final Chapter in 2004. Unfortunatley the label soon went under and this amazing piece of music has long since been out of print. But now Abyss Records is doing the world a huge favour and service by reissuing it with a bonus track and a different cover. Although the Ken Kelly-made new cover was actually used by Iron Kodex when they released The Awakening on vinyl a few years back.

Resurrection From The Underworld initiates this journey through prosecution, terror, execution and death...you know like life in general. This instrumental piece brings purgatory to mind, if there is such a place and leads quickly to the title track The Awakening(Interpolating The Wrath Of The Undead). Even though this track isn't very fast it's heavy, incredibly heavy and the band pummels me into the ground as evil arises. Karl Simon's voice has a beautiful desperation and urgency that completes the band's music perfectly.

The third chapter in this horror narrative is The Judge and evil rears it's ugly head even more in the disguise of a remorseless judge. And you can feel that when the band launches in to the song. Like someone on the verge of breaking down The Gates Of Slumber weaves back and forth in tempo creating feelings of despair and hopelessness. Karl's guitar playing is impeccable while Jason McCash's thunderous bass again pummels me into the ground with drummer Chuck Brown heaping even more misery on me....fantastic!!!

The Jury is an elongation of The Judge but the band ups the tempo a little bit, not too much because this is doom after all. And they are a tad more elaborate and steps out of the box in certain parts jamming out while the riffing is bone crushing.

Whereas The Jury and The Judge are extensions of each other the same goes for the next two tracks, Broken On The Wheel and The Executioner. Both are the fastest songs on the album and they lean more towards traditional heavy metal but of course the lyrics keeps it doomy indeed. In this two-part segment you see your life flashing before your eyes as all kinds of horror and torture are forced upon you until the axeman finally steps up and relieves you from your misery.

Blessed Pathway To Celestial Kingdom is the beginning of the end. Mainly a thing between Jason and Chuck this instrumental piece to me is when you die and your soul leaves on it's journey to wherever it goes when the body dies. It is slow and captivating, almost soothing and very beautiful. The Burial picks up right where Blessed Pathway To Celestial Kingdom left off and ends the original release. And it couldn't be more fitting than being laid to rest after such a brutal passing. The band brings down the tempo to just about funeral doom which further enhances one's passing.

The bonus track is called The Cloaked Figure and was intended to be on The Awakening but the band excluded in order for a rework of it. When it came time for that drummer Chuck Brown had left The Gates Of Slumber and the song was left unused. When Abyss Records approached them for this reissue the band decided that The Cloaked Figure should be brought back in it's original form.

Dear waveriders, yours truly was blessed enough to get my hands of an original copy of The Awakening before it sold out. Still I think it's great it's available again because more people should own this album. Although it was their first official release The Gates Of Slumber set the bar high for coming albums which they have managed to emulate and surpass each time but that's a different story. This as a stand-alone album is fantastic and since it was their debut that makes it even more better. Great stuff indeed!

--Swedebeast

Sleep - Dopesmoker - Reissue

As of the date of my submission, there's no downloadable content available from Sleep. Which means I have to stream it to hear it at all.

It's not like the album's called Dopesmoker, or anything... that implies one would do well to listen to this one NOT chained via headphones to their computer....

Fine! I'll stream it! Anything to just hear it!

Because I am a whore for Sleep! And Southern Lord in general! I even bought a freaking Sleep shirt for my wife, who doesn't even like metal! And she wears it! And gets compliments on it! And then says, "It's his."

Even though I have the first two iterations of Dopesmoker (Jerusalem and Dopesmoker), I am (quite figuratively) dying to hear this one-- it's remastered, there's Arik Roper's new stoner-via-Dune esque cover, there's crazy anecdotes about the recording of the album, e.g.:
Pike stated that the "song was getting slower and slower and then it got weird. We started tripping out and second guessing ourselves." Recording the album was difficult. Pike   recalled that "there was so much to memorize for that album, and we had to do it in like three different sections because a reel-to-reel only holds 22 minutes. It was really cool, but it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in in my life." SLEEP were in the studio for one month then went home to rehearse and returned for another month. Pike noted that they ended up with two or three different versions of the song.
It also features an unreleased live recording of a live performance of “Holy Mountain” from San Francisco’s I-Beam in 1994.

When Racer sent this to me I was literally listening to the older version of Dopesmoker on the stereo. It's fate/ kismet/ karma/ destiny....

Ironically, there is no weed with probably a quarter mile of me. Interpolate as is your wont, my minions. You may find this fact journalistically-dishonest (Pike and co. have said repeatedly that Dopesmoker was written to be heard while stoned), but I feel I must fully disclose.

So:

I've heard this new version a dozen times now: the first thing you notice is that the riff entering at around 0:15 is much clearer and louder. I don't really know that much about remastering, mastering, et cetera, and maybe they've only made it louder, but I can actually hear the pick hitting the strings, whereas on the version of Dopesmoker I'm familiar with, it's a bit harder to pick that out. At this point, I want both versions of Dopemoker on vinyl, at jet-engine volume, to truly try and parse the differences between the two editions.

Of course, my lineage is mostly German and Scandinavian, a notoriously-detail-oriented/obsessive people, and I personally am anal-retentive as fuck, so maybe I'm overdoing things.

Again: interpret as is your wont.

At about 21:30, once everything but the main riff drops out, you can again hear the strings over-vibrating against the pickup... which is pretty cool. I feel like I'm standing right next to the band in a small room without carpeted floors.
The lyrics, too, are a bit more clear: the first line "Drop out of life with bong in hand" is easier to understand, as is the classic, "Lungsmen unearth the creed of Hasheeshian."

Man. That's some obscure poetic shit that Rimbaud, William Burroughs, Baudelaire, Rumi and Kerouac would find obtuse.

How can you not love that?

If nothing else, the reissue reiterates why it's such a great record (if you truly let it in, stoned or not)-- it just comes in and sweeps itself through your brain, it says to you we have all the time in the world, let's use it thinking of far-away lands that before this record you found impossible to believe existed....

If you already have the old version of Dopesmoker? If you're really into it, you'll wanna check this out. Otherwise, stick with the old version. Tune in, turn on, burn out, daddy-o....

--Horn




[Southern Lord's Press Release about Dopesmoker: http://www.southernlord.com/band_SLE.php ]

[Southern Lord records' Deluxe Reissue of Sleep's Dopesmoker is released internationally on May 8, 2012.]