Sleep (band) - Definition and Overview

Sleep is a 1990s stoner metal band from San Jose, California. Al Cisneros, Justin Marler, Chris Haikus and Matt Pike formed the band in the late 1980s and released their debut, Volume One, in 1991 (see 1991 in music). Frequently compared to pioneers like Saint Vitus, Sleep soon gained a devoted fanbase within the developing stoner metal scene.

Holy Mountain (1993) is the band's widely-acknowledged pinnacle and is a seminal stoner and doom metal album. This was followed by a potentially lucrative offer from London Records, but Sleep decided to stay with their previous label. Continued their cannabis choked recording habits, recorded Jerusalem, a single 52-minute ode to marijuana that the label refused to release. After two years in limbo, Sleep decided to break up rather than release the album in a different format. It was finally released in 1999 (see 1999 in music) on Rise Above Records. In 2003, the album was released again as Dopesmoker. This new version is band-sanctioned, does not have arbitrary track markers on the CD version, and restores Jerusalem's truncated ending. It is generally considered the definitive version of the album.

Pike has formed High on Fire while Marler (now a monk) and Haikus have formed The Sabians.