LP Review: 'Thousand Sons of Sleep' by Godsleep

From the groove laden bass line of the first cut on Thousand Sons of Sleep, Godsleep had me nodding my head. When the clean, bluesy riff came in I was totally hooked. With a heavy tip of the hat to Kyuss, this band from Athens, Greece fills the void left by the desert rock giants. Sprinkle in some tasteful cymbal rides, haunting vocals and headphones and you’ve got yourself a listening party for one.

Johnny handles the guitar, Fed the bass, Dennis the drums and Kostas the vocals. From their Facebook page, “Godsleep is a heavy rock band formed in Athens, Greece, in 2010… characterized as one of the most promising bands of the heavy/ psychedelic rock sound.”

Like many bands in this genre, Godsleep gallops into that double-time feel with a swing that would make Bill Ward rise from the grave—if he were dead. In songs like “Thirteen” you can almost feel it coming which it makes it even more satisfying when it does. At times, Kostas’ vocals remind me of Neil Fallon but Godsleep is definitely more trippy than Clutch and that is not a criticism. The dynamics on Thousand Sons of Sleep keep the listener engaged with enough variation to make things really tasty.

The only thing that isn’t entirely awesome about Thousand Sons of Sleep is that the song names are plain and similar to each other making it hard to remember which one is which. Then again, that could be due to my murdered brain cells. What was I just talking about?

Thousand Sons of Sleep is now available from Rock Freaks Records and you can listen to cuts in the usual places, including the Bandcamp embed at the top of this review. If you’re a fan of Kyuss or Dozer, you’re going to love Godsleep.

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