Sleep - The Sciences (Third Man, 2018)

Had to jump the listening queue for an event like this. The first Sleep album since 2003...first new material since 1999 (excluding 2014 single "The Clarity" which does not appear here). Where can you really go from Dopesmoker, not only the best stoner metal album ever but one of the best songs/albums...ever. A landmark in every way. At the time of recording Dopesmoker the band had a couple of other 15-20 minute pieces they were working on. I don't know if any of that material made it here, although we do now have an official studio version of "Sonic Titan", which appeared on the 2003 version of Dopesmoker. The Sciences features a brief, angular titular intro and thus follows five tracks. Three 10-15 minute pieces sandwiched by two shorter tracks, "Marijuanaut's Theme" and the instrumental "The Botanist". Those three longer tracks are the real meat and the ultimate picture of Sleep's strength, alternatively heavy as hell and groovily psychedelic: the aforementioned "Sonic Titan", expanded from its previous version, the behemoth "Antarcticans Thawed" (debuted at their ATP reunion show) and "Giza Butler" (ha!). Sonically the band still sounds thick, heavy, and as masterfully produced as the 2012 reissue of Dopesmoker was, although Al Cisneros' raw-throated vocals are replaced by the slightly more commanding croon he's been using since forming OM after Sleep's demise. If there's one shortfall of this album it's that I don't know if you can get any higher (ha!) than Dopesmoker but this is more than welcome addition to the canon and hopefully Sleep are back for good.

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Nachtmystium/Leviathan - In the Valley of Death, Where Black Metal is King: An Homage to the Roots (Ascension Monuments Media, 2018)

What the fuck is that title. Okay I get the first part is a Judas Iscariot tribute, but did we really need "an homage to the roots" in there? Hey wouldn't it be funny if these were actually covers of the band The Roots? Anyway. This album was supposed to come out 10 years ago, but it was blocked by the bands' respective labels. Now I guess they've figured out a way, or Blake Judd needs money for drugs so he's figured out a way, to put this out. The Bandcamp version has 8 tracks, 5 from Nachtmystium and 3 from Leviathan, but I've seen a 10-track tracklisting elsewhere. On the version I have, we have Nachtmystium covering Judas Iscariot, Ildjarn (twice), Von and Burzum. Leviathan tackles Ildjarn (twice) and Von once. I seem to be missing Leviathan's Judas Iscariot cover ("Where the Winter Beats Incessant") and one of Nachtmystium's Von covers ("Von"). Weird. Wonder if there were some licensing issues or something. All four Ildjar

Sunburned Hand of the Man - Get Wet with the Animal (Manhand, 2018)

I keep up with Sunburned only intermittently these days, they seem to be taking a more rock-ist approach lately. Like this one. Each track is about 4-5 minutes of pretty ramshackle, jammy, funky, boogie rock...almost spoiled by the throaty, beery vocals shouted over the top of each one of these tunes with nonsensical platitudes. I almost shut it off after a couple tracks but I stuck it out and kinda came around on some level. I was oddly reminded of My War era Black Flag sludge punk. The band sez "these Holy Grail fueled recordings are a mix of iphone and zoom recordings run through garageband, reaper and some plug-ins. We're still working on the much more listener-friendly Black Dirt session..." and point taken, listener friendly this ain't.

Kanye West - Ye (GOOD Music/Def Jam, 2018)

For no real reason other than I guess the fact that he felt he had to put an album out, Ye was cobbled together in a month. And it shows quite plainly. As much as I praised the Ye-produced DAYTONA for making a fully formed album out of a mere 20-odd minutes, here Ye sounds like an odds-n-sods compilation - it literally sounds like a snapshop of a month in the studio with Kanye. Look, I have a lot of time for Kanye('s music). Yeezus is one of the best hip hop albums ever, to say nothing of the classics that preceded it. Obviously most people look at Yeezus as the dividing line between New Kanye and Old Kanye, but I still love it. The Life of Pablo was a little more dicey - it was slipshod, haphazard, scattered, bloated. I was hoping with this new 7-song limit we'd get back to Yeezus-style tightness. Not so much. You can count the good things on this album on one hand - the hooks on "Yikes" and "All Mine", "Ghost Town" which sounds like the only ful

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