Fans and critics have tended to make more noise about Dopesmoker, the 63-minute song from 2003 that more or less defines Sleep as the stoner metal band to beat all others. Nothing wrong with that, but this late entry (2018) is my favorite of their albums. Matt Pike has a relationship to his nine-string guitar that allows for a spiritually centered and massive fuzz that needs little around it to make it worth your time. Except the band is so good at making this kind of queasy mayhem, rock that sounds like it dropped out the bottom of a broiler after two unclean years. There are no unsullied sounds on a Sleep album, though The Sciences has their tightest songs and least predictable freakouts. Cathartic and visceral, the marijuanauts have never sounded more high or more grounded than they do on The Sciences.