OM rose from the ashes of the group Sleep, one of the early pioneers of stoner/sludge metal and originally comprised Al Cisneros and Chris Haikus. Cisneros and Haikus first worked together in a group called Asbestosdeath and released their first record under the Sleep moniker, Volume One in 1991. It was their next release Sleep’s Holy Mountain the following year that cemented their role in the development of stoner metal. The group went on to release two versions of similar material, first Jerusalem in 1997 and then under the name Dopesmoker in 2003. The estimable folks at Southern Lord have reissued Dopesmoker a few times over the years and it’s wall to wall goodness.

To the chagrin of many, the group and its founding members seemed to slow down after the release of Dopesmoker. But Cisneros and Haikus returned as OM with 2005’s Variations on a Theme. Bhirma’s Theme comes from a 2007 release on Southern Lord entitled Pilgrimage and its worthy of reverence and (dare I say it) pilgrimage, though luckily you shouldn’t have to go very far to hear it.