The type of overnight success that Sleep Token’s 2023 album ‘Take Me Back To Eden’ set in motion simply doesn’t happen to rock and metal bands anymore. In terms of the speed and scale of this phenomenon, they have no 21st-century equal in their genre. Set to headline Download Festival next month, before an autumn US arena tour that sold out instantly, they’ve arguably dethroned new RCA labelmates Bring Me The Horizon as the hottest alternative band in the world right now.
Faced with the pressure of following ‘Take Me Back To Eden’, the anonymous four-piece responded in March with a seemingly familiar comeback single in ‘Emergence’. That’s until they slapped an extended jazz outro on the end, reminding everyone of the unpredictability that would continue to define their next era. Shortly after, follow-up track ‘Caramel’ gatecrashed the UK Top 10, somehow finding a way to lure its reggaeton-infused beat towards a pulverising black metal jumpscare. The soul-stirring ‘Damocles’ also broke the Top 30, highlighting just how deeply Sleep Token have penetrated the mainstream in the lead-up to fourth album ‘Even In Arcadia’.
That record should continue the British band’s ascent to the top of the rock world, without compromising on any of what makes them so exciting. Eight-minute opener ‘Look To Windward’ could be an entire album in itself. It sets up the crossroads ahead with its unbearable, cinematic tension, which is then annihilated by a heaviness that chops through it like an executioner’s axe. Its unsettling lyrics grapple with impending doom and the inevitable cycle of life (“Coughing up blood in the twilight / Everything looks the same”), also properly introducing key pieces of lore: House Veridian and Feathered Host (“I live by the feather / And die by the sword”).
Sleep Token’s rise hasn’t been without some strife, something they broach on this album. ‘Caramel’ and ‘Damocles’ grant us access to the troubled human behind bandleader Vessel, the former tackling the invasive fan toxicity that’s grown with their success head-on (bassist III’s birth certificate was allegedly leaked last January). Artistically and lyrically bold, it sugarcoats precious little (“The stage is a prison… Terrified to open my front door”) compared to the lyrical grey area which Sleep Token usually occupy.
Vessel spits equally blunt truths over twinkling R&B cut ‘Past Self’, which exemplifies how piano and synth melodies help dictate the tone of ‘Even In Arcadia’ – there’s no need for dominant guitar riffs like ‘Hypnosis’ or ‘The Offering’ this time around. Similarly, the divine title track answers the sheet music riddle – and it’s straight out of the Game Of Thrones score, carrying the hallmarks of some sort of critical judgement day for Vessel. We hear him momentarily roar for the first time, perhaps finally owning the image of the deity he’s been built up to be (“I am the final God”).
Across 15 minutes of ‘Gethsemane’ and ‘Infinite Baths’, Sleep Token get even weirder. Like some of the genre-bending on ‘Take Me Back To Eden’, the former weaves between math-rock, stadium-rock and trap, while the latter’s utopian imagery is crushed by pounding blackgaze and doom metal, tearing the end of the album away from Arcadia and into the unknown.
‘Even In Arcadia’ shatters any pressure of expectation into oblivion, building on the bravery of its predecessor, sonically, while its lyrics reveal the most exposed version of Vessel we’ve seen yet. From Eden to Arcadia – and beyond – let the worship continue.
