SLEEP “Vol. 2” LP

Unofficial release!!! Fanclub edition.

Shortly after the release of Volume One, Sleep began work on their next album. In the meantime, the band recorded a few songs on Razor’s Edge, which were eventually released by Swiss label Off The Disk as an “official bootleg”. The album cover is of course a play on words on the iconic cover of Black Sabbath’s Vol. 4 album. The original press has a black and orange cover, and the inner cover is orange, while the inner cover of the later press is white. Inside the original press is a sheet of yellow paper, “info-sheet NO.3, Fall 1991”.

The cover of Black Sabbath’s Lord of This World was a studio recording with added live intros and crowd noise. The packaging claims that the Lord Of This World cover was performed live in 1979 at Radio City Music Hall. This is an inside joke, as the members of Sleep were around seven years old. This is also a reference to Radio City Music Hall as a venue where Sabbath performed, although the band itself was not actively touring in 1979, as at the time the band was working on their ninth album, firing Ozzy Osbourne and hiring Ronnie James Dio in June of that year. Black Sabbath are also particularly credited with this record.

The Druid and Nain’s Baptism appear here in their early incarnations (it should be noted that the various bass solos that bridge the guitar solo on The Druid and Nain’s Baptism are considerably shorter), but both were re-recorded for Holy Mountain Sleep.

Volume Two proved to be one of Sleep’s most valuable and desirable releases, fetching prices ranging from $50 to $250 on the secondary market. In the late 2000s, a bootleg 12″ LP surfaced with the Gilman St. concert as a bonus track. In 2010, Off The Disk Records released a 6×7″ boxset of their various singles from over the years, including Volume 2.