Eight years after The Sciences, Sleep reconvenes with a revised lineup — minus founding guitarist Matt Pike — and a new album for Third Man Records. The single “The Morrisist” offers the first full glimpse of the reworked band.
Sleep has announced Hemispheres, the band’s first album since 2018’s The Sciences and its inaugural release without founding guitarist Matt Pike. The revamped lineup puts Al Cisneros alongside guitarist Bubba Dupree (Void) and drummer Dale Crover (Melvins). Recorded at the Melvins’ studio with longtime engineer Toshi Kasai, the five-track LP will land digitally on September 3 and physically on October 30 via Jack White’s Third Man Records.
“The Morrisist,” the album’s second preview, follows the June single “Have Spacesuit Will Travel.” Lyrically, it foregrounds the group’s ongoing fixation on the riff, with Cisneros name-checking Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi: “A neon knight / Reignites / The SG is within / A tempered blade / A promise made / Stands the Iommicist.” The track doesn’t overhaul the band’s trademark low-end lurch, but the injection of Dupree’s angular style and Crover’s weight gives it a distinct, slightly more corrosive texture.
A Sleep comic book, published by Third Man Books, will arrive alongside the album. Issue No. 1 ships September 22. Sleep’s North American tour begins September 8 in San Diego and stretches through November, including stops at Levitation in Austin and a two-night stand at San Francisco’s Fillmore.
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