It is with an immense amount of pride that we bring you a mighty offering from the gods known as Sleep! In 2011, Southern Lord was contacted by Sleeps_ Al Cisneros about the possibility of releasing a deluxe version of the classic Sleep recording: Dopesmoker. Cisneros wanted to breathe some new life into the old beast and finally have the original vision of the album fully realized. Southern Lord was overwhelmingly ecstatic about the challenge of taking the reigns of one of the most important recordings in the history of Heavy Metal! The Lord version features brand new artwork by long time Sleep artist, Arik Roper, who created something specifically special for the albums_ rebirth. The biggest difference between this new version and the old releases is the phenomenal remastering job by From Ashes Rise guitarist, Brad Boatright (OFF!, Noothgrush, Deviated Instinct). His vision was to enhance the original recording without changing it drastically. What he has done makes this epic opus sound invigorated, more powerful with renewed clarity and all-around unbelievably mammoth. His work was enthusiastically approved by the band and considering how focused, vigilant and protective of their masterpiece the band is, that is nothing short of a miracle!
We have painstakingly worked very closely with the band to make sure that this reissue was done right. It would have been completely unacceptable to cut corners or do anything that would not give this album the full respect it rightfully deserves. It meant everything to us that the band was 100% satisfied with the result of all the hard work and in fact has dubbed this THEE ULTIMATE VERSION of the album. Al Cisneros old me personally that hes' now comfortable with listening to the recording again for the first time in many, many years.
