Photo: Fred Aube
PRESS KIT
Photo: Fred Aube
“This band is the reason why Roadburn Festival must get back to the tradition of having bands perform music to famous old movies. What Sleepbomb has done for “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” borders on impossible because they are able to provide that special kind of grandezza and sparkle that such a movie needs yet never lacking the crunch and grip of a modern Post-Metal record. If anybody can out-perform Swans this year, this band might be it!”
No Clean Singing review of It Was A Good Plan
Prepare for a mesmerizing experience made of ringing and shimmering notes and steady bass-and-drum pulses, but also prepare for the music to swell, soar, and sear — and to batter, gouge, and heavily heave — becoming an order of magnitude more intense and desperate, even though the track’s hook-laden central melody remains the gripping through-line as it cycles over and over again. By the end, things become catastrophic (and your neck might be getting sore by that point too).
OUT NOW!!!
BIO
Sleepbomb is a San Francisco-based psychedelic doom project focused on full, original scores for genre films including the German Expressionist silent masterpieces - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu and Metropolis. Sleepbomb has also written and performed full scores for George Romero’s 1968 classic zombie film Night of the Living Dead and the epic swords & snakes of John Milius’ 1982 Conan the Barbarian. Historically a live experience, Sleepbomb has performed their scores across the West coast of the US since 2003 and now has set their sights on expanding to the East coast and the world for 2025.
Musically, Sleepbomb ranges from heavy doom riffs to dreamy shoegaze, dark soundscapes punctuated with shimmering guitar and ethereal vocals. Originally stylistically close to a chaotic version of Throbbing Gristle vs Black Sabbath, Sleepbomb has been exploring experimental sounds and forms, guided by the band’s love of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Coil, Neurosis, Sunn 0))), Ulver and Swans, among others. Settling on a drone influenced style of doom metal as the overarching theme while exploring other genres as appropriate for each film’s particular style, Sleepbomb’s goal is to re-contextualize the experience of these well known films. They succeed in this goal.
Sleepbomb joined Bill Gould’s koolarrow records and Belgium’s Consouling Sounds in 2023 for the release of their score for the classic 1920 German Expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. They are overjoyed to repeat this collaboration for their January 2025 release of The Sleeping Dead: excerpts from an alternate score for George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead!
Charlie Hernandez: guitars
Tim Gotch: basses, synths
Rob Johnson: drums and percussion.
Claire Hamard: vocals, synths, electronics