Sleep
The Sciences

Reunion.

This must be the year.

So it happens that, like a bolt from the blue, "The Sciences" crashes down, as anticipated as an asteroid aimed straight at the Holy Father's throat, and our ears are in the crosshairs ... but one might as well say all six senses are.

Here, everyone knows that our delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol-fueled heroes haven't engaged in a joint musical effort under the Sleep banner for more than two decades. And never mind if the work is still not available in those tangible formats to which we old folks are so accustomed.

Cyclic sidereal volleys, cosmic mantras chanted by the ceremonialist Cisneros and his "lateral" singing.

In the sense that it is beside this dimension, coming from extrastellar spirals capable of abducting and enfolding you in a hypnotic and wild circle at the same time.

Sacredness and brutality, sonic/existential synthesis for otherworldly journeys and a return to Earth.

Sound lines that are ideally positioned halfway between Matt's granitic declinations and his High on Fire and Al's shamanic mystical litanies.

With the pitch-black drums of Roeder from Neurosis (well, no kidding) acting as a binder.

A goddamn bisector that penetrates your brain and doesn't let go.

And in this reunion (as noted) lies the novelty element, compared to the drugged and hallucinatory stoner of previous works.

This time it's as if they've vibrated the engines of an intergalactic spacecraft along frequencies that echo ancestral prayers.

Not bad.

So it's no coincidence that these alien sounds serve as the soundtrack as I go to meet a group of old friends who haven't seen each other since the days when Dopesmoker was released.

After all, even though more than twenty years have passed, there are bonds that exist and endure regardless of time.

Those differences that complement each other, even after years, complementary and perfectly compatible.

Almost necessary.

Like those of Pike and Cisneros, who after taking different paths coagulate the best into an epochal result.

Even though I am certain that the reason for their separation doesn't lie in a clumsy attempt to bang each other's girlfriends back in the day because they were too altered by assorted substance abuses ... among the other trivialities that brought elements of slight disturbance to the group's harmony, eh.

Time always sets things right.

The important thing is to find each other again.