DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN
Ire Works
(Relapse)

ROSETTA
Wake/Lift
(Translation Loss)

OM
Pilgrimage
(Southern Lord)

SICK PORKY
Ancestral
(Zonda)

RED LIMO
Soulful Attack EP
(Self-Released)

AUTOMATIC 7
At Funeral Speed 

(Mental)

DON'T MESS WITH 
TEXAS
Los Dias de Junio

(Moonlee)

MORE REVIEWS

Think of Sleep as the enthusiastic dreadlocked college freshman extremist who gets everyone around him hooked on pot. Foul-smelling, sandal-wearing, bloodshot-eyed, class-skipping, baggy panted and prone to sell you weak shake, he is also the type that likes his stuff rough around the edges, with armpit odor and greenish scabs, and who judged by the outside could pass by a Grateful Dead loving moronic hippie. Think of Sleep as the influential band that inadverdently helped shape one of the most important, heavy and spacey metal sub genres. Now, think of Sleep’s excesses (and if the necessary Jerusalem isn’t an excess, I don’t know what is) as the first step before triggering a mental excursion that extends to today’s Om and will apparently never cease. Think of Sleep and take out the guitar, carefully peel off the layers of aggression; break off standard songwriting structure, take away bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros frankly naked vocalizing and magnify his rotund bass playing.

And what you get is Om. Pilgrimage, the band’s third following Variations On a Theme and 2006’s auspicious Conference of the Birds, takes the music one step further and ventures the guitarless duo into more esoteric territories. It sounds like a session of hypnosis. Or some other trance inducing practice. It is true that Pilgrimage is an excessive record, and taking into account that is only comprised of three songs and a reprise, that’s a bit of a compliment. Things start lethargically with the title track; basically just a voice and a bass; shapeless, weak meditating melodies, its depth is up for discussion or up to the listener, but matters get interesting only with second track “Unitive Knowledge of the Godhead”, which gains weight and radio via the beefiest bass sound this side of the planet. Om repeats the formula with “Bhima’s Theme” a similar track of equal tempo, and similar basslines, the drums of Chris Hakius trotting around as syncopated company. Om finds solace around the eighth minute; Cisnero’s takes centerstage with his bass, and frankly I could go to sleep any minute now.  Think of all the guitarless bands of nowadays, and Om deserves its own paragraph. No one gets this massive sound from the four strings like Al Cisneros. Credit should also go to ‘recorder’ Steve Albini, who we all know for his objective reproduction of real music.

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