I’ve always kind of thought of Sleep as DJ Screw for metalheads. Well, I actually just always thought of Sleep as Sleep, cuz they’re pretty much metal legends at this point. But I also kinda always thought that with their album Dopesmoker, Sleep chopped and screwed doom metal forebears like Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer, slowing down their blues-based, proto-doom metal riffs, making them heavier and trippier and changing the game.

Since reuniting in 2009 (the band was formed in San Jose back in the 90s), Sleep has played pretty sporadically, so their show on June 5th at the Fox Theater is definitely one you want to get your ass out to.

Throw in openers Oxbow — also a long-running band, formed in the late 80s right here in SF — and young upstarts (by comparison) Kowloon Walled City, and you’ve got yourself a party. A brutal, crushing party.

Here’s the track “Holy Mountain” from the album Sleep’s Holy Mountain, which I always kinda thought of as the best Black Sabbath album not by Black Sabbath.

And here’s a stream of Kowloon Walled City’s 2009 album, Gambling on the Richter Scale, for good measure.

Sleep, Oxbow, Kowloon Walled City
Fox Theater
June 5, 2012
8pm, $25