Om

As the rhythm section for Sleep, bassist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Hakius helped create the templates for stoner rock and doom metal before heading toward another frontier of heavy as Om. After the end of Sleep’s original run in 1998, Cisneros and Hakius founded their new band in San Francisco in 2003. Intensifying Sleep’s most hypnotic qualities, Om’s songs combined the power of metal with structures derived from Tibetan and Byzantine religious music. As a result, albums like 2007’s Pilgrimage were just as suited to deep meditation as they were to headbanging. Audiences at their epic-length shows—including one in Jerusalem in 2007 that lasted five hours—had plenty of opportunities for both activities. Though the band’s own journey was temporarily interrupted by Sleep’s reformation in 2009 and Hakius’ retirement from music the same year, Cisneros continued to refine Om’s spiritually minded fusion of heavy rock, experimental music, and liturgical traditions with a new lineup on 2009’s God Is Good and 2012’s Advaitic Songs.