Jerusalem and Dopesmoker are two versions of the third studio album by the American stoner doom band Sleep. The former title was released in 1999 by The Music Cartel and the latter was released by Tee Pee Records in 2003. The music for these albums comprises an extended hour-length piece (either split into multiple shorter tracks or presented as a single track), developed over four years and recorded in 1996 under the auspices of Sleep's label at the time, London Records. When recording had completed, London was unhappy with the finished product and refused to release it, leading to Sleep's disbandment and the album surfacing on bootlegs and unauthorized indie releases in subsequent years. All versions of the album received very positive reception from music critics, who described it as a high-water mark in both the stoner metal and doom metal genres.
The stoner rock movement - if you can call it a movement - proved to be as nebulous as past trends like "Second Wave British Blues" and well, "post-punk". It involved a litany of varied bands from the hippest of music scenes to the farthest of far-flung places you can't even imagine. San Jose, California's Sleep provided arguably the biggest mystery the genre has ever seen. Their one and only foray into the corporate big leagues took eons to record (well, about two years, because of the Man, man) and felt even longer to experience. This epic hour-long bout of hash-slung pile-driving sludge apparently didn't impress their bigwig label enough for official release, so originally it came out in edited form as Jerusalem in 1999, followed by the full version in 2003. Not saying the Sleep records before and after suck or anything but when all is said and done their career hinges on this Gordian Knot-style whopper.
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