Sleep has returned with its first new music in eight years and a North American tour split into two fall legs. The band released “Have Spacesuit Will Travel” via Third Man Records, and the track arrives as Sleep’s first single since 2018’s The Sciences.

For Al Cisneros, the new recording marks a rare reset that puts fresh music back in circulation while the band lines up 2026 dates. He is joined on the track by guitarist Bubba Dupree and drummer Dale Crover, which gives the release a familiar shape even as it breaks new ground for the group.

That is why the announcement is drawing attention now. Sleep is not just teasing a return; it is pairing the song with two North American tour legs, one spanning all of September and another that picks back up in early to mid-November. An artist pre-sale begins Tuesday, June 23rd, at 10 a.m. local time through Ticketmaster, with general on-sale set for Thursday, June 25th, at 10 a.m. local time.

The new music also arrives with a complication that fans will notice immediately. “Have Spacesuit Will Travel” is the first Sleep track to not feature founding member and guitarist Matt Pike, even as it is being presented under the band’s name and in the same burst of activity that includes Sleep Comic Book Issue #1. Cisneros said he wishes Pike the best on his earth-bound maneuvers and added that the music and art are alive after the decades of obstacles the band has overcome.

That mix of old identity and new personnel is what gives the release weight. Sleep’s first run lasted from 1990 to 1998, its second from 2009 to 2019, and it came out of its most recent hiatus in 2021/2022 for a handful of shows before fading again. Jason Roeder said back in spring 2025 that he had been unceremoniously fired from the band, underscoring how unsettled the lineup has been around a project that still carries the Sleep name.

The comic book side of the rollout sharpens the picture further. Sleep Comic Book Issue #1 introduces The Marijuanaut from Planet Iommia, who encounters The Weedian, extending the same mythology that has long surrounded the band’s work. For now, the next thing listeners can count on is simple: presales open first, then the public sale, and then a fall run that will show whether this version of Sleep is a one-off return or the start of something more durable.