When the duo resurfaced as Om they ditched the lead guitar entirely, and replaced the noise with a concentrated meditative skyward groove of just bass, drums and monotone chant like vocal.
The aim in all of this seems to be quasi religious transcendental experience akin to Gregorian chant, Alice Coltrane or Nyah-Bingi Rasta drum circles.
This is Om's sophomore release, just two lengthy tracks of maximum meditational usefulness. The lyrics seem to follow some oblique logic, maybe some ancient Haiku or the encrypted instructions for a psychedelic shamanic ritual. Or perhaps just a heavily tripping Jerry Horne like individual describing the flight of a swan. Slow paced hypnotic words in changing patterns; sample: 'The orphic glow seen - as arwal sounds rise - cumbent to the throne - within on spine's attained plow'.
Om's music then is psychedelic in the original sense of 'mind expanding' or 'mind altering', certainly for the duration, and more effective as loud as possible. Mighty bass grooves and eastern drone scales weave patterns around the ride cymbals, burrowing as deep as Sabbath or Melvins but without guitar.
Following this there would be one further studio album 'Pilgrimage' which is also great. They would also reform Sleep to perform Jerusalem live on several dates. More recently Al Cisneros, the Bass and vocal part of the duo would put out a few singles of dub reggae influenced music, which were great, and made perfect sense in the context of the deep grooves of the best doom/stoner rock. In actual fact a dub remix of all the Om stuff could work well. Looking forward to seeing the next guise they will appear under.
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