Here is the thing about Sleep in 2026: this is not the band you saw a few years ago, and that is exactly the point. The stoner doom pioneers are back with a reconfigured lineup and their first new music in eight years. Al Cisneros — bass, vocals, the throughline — is still here. But Dale Crover of the Melvins is behind the kit now, and Bubba Dupree of Void is handling guitar. They dropped “Have Spacesuit Will Travel” through Third Man Records in June, and they are coming to Higher Ground in South Burlington, Vermont on Wednesday, November 11. Doors at 7 PM, show at 8 PM.
About Sleep
San Jose bred them around 1990. Sleep’s Holy Mountain made them legends. Dopesmoker made them mythology. The Sciences, released through Third Man Records in 2018, reminded everyone they could still bend the genre they helped define. Then the band went quiet again.
The new chapter: Matt Pike — co-founding guitarist, Sleep’s other half for decades — is out. Crover brings a career’s worth of heavy behind him, between Melvins and Redd Kross. Dupree comes from early hardcore outfit Void, and his guitar tone has Cisneros reaching for a very specific compliment: “blue sunglasses-era Iommi in the quality.” That is a high bar, stated with confidence. The new single maintains the band’s sludgy, deliberate wall of sound and suggests the architecture is intact even as the lineup shifts.
This is Sleep’s first tour with this configuration. The Burlington show falls mid-November-leg — they come in from Montreal and push on to Boston the next night. The Northeast stretch moves fast.
About Higher Ground
Higher Ground Ballroom sits at 1214 Williston Road in South Burlington — one of the stronger rooms in the North Country for exactly this kind of show. The ballroom format gives the music room to move, and Vermont crowds tend to know what they came for. Get there by doors at 7 PM to settle in before Sleep takes the stage at 8. Check highergroundmusic.com for any venue updates closer to the date.
Tickets
Tickets are on sale now. The November leg is a tight run through major markets — grab yours before this one sells through.