6. SleepSleep’s Holy Mountain
These guys are just kings of the riffs! I had a friend I was living with in London who used to listen to a lot of the stoner rock stuff and I have lost track of the amount of times we listened to this record together at ungodly hours in the morning in all kinds of states, jumping around to this playing air guitar or whatever! And again it’s got the drone thing going on which I love, I could get lost in it. But the difference is for me with this, as compared to a lot of other heavy guitar stuff, is that it grooves. I feel the same about Black Sabbath whose first four albums I could have also chosen. I love the riffs but rhythmically it nails it too. I could’ve chosen that Dopesmoker record instead as it is a stone cold classic and totally audacious being one track that is an hour long, and I love the idea of them blowing a massive advance from a major label only to bring back a one-track album. Or I could even have gone for the album they brought out after two decades away, The Sciences, as it is also brilliant. The truth is though that I just listen to this one most. I just love that title track ‘Holy Mountain’. I think it’s one of the best tunes ever made. Matt Pike is a great and unique guitar player too. You don’t realise that until you actually try to work out what he is doing. His band after Sleep, High On Fire, were brilliant as well. I think the only time I ever did a stage dive was watching those guys! I landed quite badly as I remember, never again!
