Reissued February 10, 2023

Third Man Records

2xLP 

Amid the majesty of Dopesmoker's genre defining turbulence, something that can get lost is the humour.

This was an album that was distributed for years unofficially, building a mythology online circulating file-sharing forums or passing hands as a bootleg. For four years it was a 53-minute monstrosity, a glitchy patchwork of sludge and doom known as Jerusalem, after an unsanctioned version made its way onto CD and Vinyl. All the while, the band waged a wicked legal battle against London Records over the viability of an hour-long odyssey through a bong. By the time the band was returned the rights to release it on their unedited-terms, it had ballooned to nearly 64-minutes of droning ceremony, Gregorian chanting and herbal lionizing. Upon it's official 2003 release, it was an instant classic and immediately became the categorial ideal of a stoner metal record, let alone an album that delivered on — and transcended — the promise it built during just its developmental state. It became a record that locked Sleep in as defacto's and go-to's among various strata of metal. It's a hallowed, mystifying tome of epic scope and proportions.

And they decided to call it Dopesmoker. That's hilarious.