“Have Spacesuit Will Travel” : The Return of Sleep(minus Matt Pike)

I didn’t get into Sleep until about 12 years ago or so. I was probably one of the very few that didn’t have weed as my entry point into the pot loving stoner/doom metal band’s sonic world. I was more intrigued by the hour-long song called “Dopesmoker” that became their pivotal release, and which more or less made Sleep the band members’ side project while going off and doing their own thing(Matt Pike started High On Fire, while Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius started OM.) What seemed like a good idea at the time(they were probably stoned I’m guessing) turned into a kind of nightmare for the label, studio engineers, and the band.

Dopesmoker was released in quite a few different versions, cut up and called Holy Mountain via two or three different labels. It eventually came out as Dopesmoker in it’s intended form on a million different color variants on vinyl. It contained the amazing(and blazing) 60-minute version of the song sprawled over three sides of vinyl, and then a very cool and bootleg-ish version of the song “Holy Mountain”.

I didn’t have to be a pot head to truly appreciate what these stoned, paranoid, sci-fi-obsessed Heshers created. An hour-long song that tells the tale of the Weedian people? It was like if Dune was written by Cheech and Chong. It was absurd and wonderful and glorious in every way possible. And really, it’s undoing of Sleep gave us two other great projects to follow(High on Fire and OM).

Sleep would occasionally reconvene for singles and tours in-between other obligations. On RSD 2018 they even released a new album called The Sciences that was pretty great. But since then they’ve been pretty quiet. High On Fire has remained busy, releasing Electric Messiah, Cometh The Storm, and Pike even released a solo album during Covid times called Pike vs The Automaton.

A few weeks ago Sleep dropped a new single called “Have Spacesuit Will Travel”, and I thought it was pretty damn good. When I found out that Matt Pike wasn’t involved I was pretty shocked at first. I mean, what’s Sleep without Matt Pike? But after listening to the track a few more times I kind of kept digging the vibe even more. Cisneros brought in Melvins drummer Dale Crover filling in for Jason Roeder and Void guitarist Bubba Dupree filling the shoes of giant Matt Pike.

A lot of longtime Sleep fans are pretty bummed out about this. “If Pike’s not involved, then it’s not Sleep!”, “They should have named it a different band name!”, yadda yadda, etc, etc….

Listen, I love Matt Pike’s playing and I love the speed metal sludge that High On Fire has been cooking up since the early 2000s, but Sleep has always felt more like Al Cisneros’ baby to me. He writes the lyrics, comes up the with riffs via bass, and is the voice of the band. He’s given Sleep their overall vibe, coming up with the wild ass narratives and concepts about “Weedians”, “Marijuanauts”, and just the whole vibe of the group in general. Not discounting Pike’s contributions, just saying how it feels to me.

I think this Bubba Dupree fella laying back a bit and letting the groove carry the song more than laying down blistering solos is a good thing. His playing feels more laid back, but that’s kind of what you want in a weed haze anyways. This new track “Have Spacesuit Will Travel” feels in line with some of the past singles, like “Leagues Beneath” and “The Clarity”. There’s something meditative about the groove and Cisneros’ vocals that I dig, and the solo Dupree plays feels more like something Billy Gibbons or even Josh Homme would play. It’s not speed finger pyrotechnics, it’s laid back and weird and I really dig it.

And can we talk about Matt Pike’s conspiracy theory-filled head? The guy went total Infowars during Covid. Some of the crap he said truly turned me off from him, so much so I didn’t listen to his stuff for a while. I’ve since returned to his Frank Frazetta-looking musical world and still quite enjoy it, but I think his brain has been permanently altered thanks to living in a weed cloud for over 30 years straight(not to mention all the Jameson and whatever other chemicals he’s ingested.) Where weed sort of helped him be creative with albums like De Vermis Mysteriis, Blessed Black Wings, and Surrounded By Wolves, the fantasy worlds he wrote about and created musically started to taint his common sense and reality.

Anyways, I’m digging this new Matt Pike-less Sleep. “Have Spacesuit Will Travel” sounds pretty damn good to me, despite all the hardcore Sleep fans crying that it’s “lame”. I’m very excited for a new full-length with this new Sleep line-up, and they’re even putting out a comic book about the adventures of the Marijuanaut, with illustrations by Dave Kloc. He did the artwork for Leagues Beneath and The Clarity releases.

Give “Have Spacesuit Will Travel” a listen below. A new era for Sleep has begun. Far out.