With Jason Roeder and Matt Pike gone, Sleep returns with Melvins drummer Dale Crover and Void guitarist Bubba Dupree, pushing toward space rock without fully finding its center.
Sleep’s fifth album arrives with a different backbone. Jason Roeder left to focus on Neurosis, founding guitarist Matt Pike exited, and Al Cisneros is now the only original member. The bassist and vocalist brings in Melvins drummer Dale Crover and Void guitarist Bubba Dupree, both veterans of heavy music. On paper the trio should work, but the mix sometimes pushes the guitars too far back.
The record leans toward space rock early. “Have Spacesuit Will Travel” uses synthesized guitar tones and Cisneros’s lyrics about cosmic depth and weed to set a moody, Black Sabbath-derived atmosphere. “The Morrisist” slows further, with hissing hi-hats, quasi-Arabic melodies, and a nocturnal density that makes it the album’s most focused moment.
After that, the record shifts in a way that feels less certain. Sleep’s legacy rests on patience and riff repetition, but here the new lineup appears to be searching for a stable center. The cover art, with its space-suited Marijuanaut and cat companion, suggests a settled home planet; the music doesn’t always land with the same clarity.
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