Dopesmoker vinyl

Is it an album? A really long EP? A masterpiece of transportive heavy metal innovation realised via seamless dark overture? Certainly, Dopesmoker is the latter. As for the others, it really depends on whether or not you can consider four tracks to be an LP. Running at around 60minutes puts this on the shyer side of long form releases too, but who ever heard of an hour-long extended play?

Questions that threaten sanity aside, the third major studio outing from US metallers sleep is nothing short of inspired. Actually released three years before this version first surfaced (in 1999 via The Music Cartel under the title Jerusalem), the record is certainly good enough to warrant a second reveal. It's thick, gritty, grimy, low-end driven grinding stuff that still slaps with tangible funk and, while menacing, belongs to a side of the canon removed from visceral screams of noisecore subgenres, packing undeniable rock musicality.