Behold, a new offering.
In the last five years, an enigmatic rock band named Sleep Token has bent metal to its will. Emerging from the pandemic shadows of 2020, the masked group quickly established itself as an amorphous entity, syncing guttural screams with pop melodies, hip-hop drums and reggaetón grooves to the growing curiosity of the masses. Sleep Token’s disruption is perfectly captured in a viral reaction video from Slaughter to Prevail’s Alex Terrible, who rolled his eyes at its lead singer Vessel during a listen of 2023’s “The Summoning.”
“Who the f—k is this guy?” the Russian frontman tells the camera after pausing the song, before summarizing his reaction to the song in imperfect English: “I very like vocals, it sounds beautiful and gay, but it’s okay. It’s just not my cup of tea. I don’t like clean vocals in heavy music.”
But after he resumes play on the song, “The Summoning” mutates into an explosive drop, with Vessel erupting a death metal gurgle over the band’s hammering guitars. Terrible smirks at the camera. “Okay,” he concedes.
While any sort of genre hopping usually makes metal heads recoil, Sleep Token has accrued its own gravitational pull, collecting fans who both worship heavy giants like Knocked Loose and Lorna Shore but know how to catch a vibe to Bad Bunny and Drake. Still, those same fans grew weary after RCA announced last year it was adding Vessel and co. to their roster: Major labels and their machines have historically been known as a “clean-up-on-aisle-three” death notice for metal bands, taking their grungy scraps and turning them into slick full-course meals.
All of this means Sleep Token’s Even in Arcadia will be the biggest and most divisive album of their career. The end result? A whole lot of genre mashing, full-blown pop songs, and a few sick metal riffs for good measure. Regardless of whether the project makes you wanna rage or roll your eyes, it’s clear Vessel isn’t through conquering the rock world.
Here are all 10 songs on Sleep Token’s Even in Arcadia ranked.
-
“Dangerous”
While Sleep Token’s use of trap and dubstep here is admirable, “Dangerous” just doesn’t rattle my insides the same way other songs do. Even in Arcadia is filled with moments that are truly suffocating, where the guitars are so heavy, and the screams are so dense, that it envelopes everything around me. When that’s the bar, a dubby bass hit just packs less of a punch. “Dangerous” at times feels crowded, with Vessel’s voice drowned out by the mash of guitars and beats and backing vocals that perforate the song.
-
“Past Life”
“Past Life” is undeniably the most divisive song on this record, and will likely thrill radio but disgust Vessel’s longtime supporters. While “Past Life” works on its face as a groovy pop track, the issue is that it feels incredibly boilerplate for a Sleep Token song: The band has always known how to fill its space, utilizing multiple genres into lengthy anthems that toss the listener around like a rag doll (“Take Me Back to Eden,” “Ascensionism”). In that respect, “Past Life” feels predictable, underwhelming and worst of all, calculated. This song feels designed to conquer TikTok and the charts, and critical metalheads will no doubt weaponize it to troll Sleep Token fans moving forward.
-
“Provider”
“Provider” feels almost like it was ghost-written by Usher. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as Vessel coos with the lustful urgency of any R&B veteran — but the issue is that Vessel and Sleep Token have established themselves as otherworldly entities. The band was born out of their worship for “an ancient deity crudely dubbed, ‘Sleep,’ since no modern tongue can properly express its name.” Fans have clocked in numerous hours dissecting Vessel’s lyrics, piecing them together from project to project in hopes of further understanding this complex lore.
So when Vessel cries out: “I wanna do more than just bend the rules/ ‘Cause you been hittin’ my phone so hard,” it feels weird to picture the singer — clad in black body paint, shimmering armor, a sword and his white bedazzled mask — doing something as mortal as answering a late-night booty call.
-
“Even in Arcadia”
“Even in Arcadia” is spellbinding. Guided by nothing more than a piano and Vessel’s voice, the song serves as both a nice break from the upbeat anthems that came before it, and a haunting call to arms for Sleep Token’s longtime supporters, thanking them for taking this strange journey into the mainstream eye with them. “No matter how we feel/ We’ve got a taste for one another and a few good years to kill,” Vessel sings. “No matter what is real/ It seems that even in Arcadia you walk beside me still.”
-
“Damocles”
Simply put, “Damocles” is Sleep Token’s “These Are The Days of Our Lives.” Unapologetic and honest, the band ruminates on their relationship to fame and success, acknowledging that while it’s knocking at their front door, it doesn’t feel the way they thought. “What if I can’t get up and stand tall?/ What if the diamond days are all gone?” Vessel cries.
At this point in the album, Vessel seems to also reassure his fans that he knows Even in Arcadia sounds partially constructed and mainstream. “I know these chords are boring/ But I can’t always be killing the game,” he sings. The end result is a song that helps us see the man behind the mask, and humbles us with a reminder that these are just songwriters, looking to make music that feels authentic to them. Who are we to judge how it sounds?
-
“Emergence”
The lead single off Even in Arcadia encompasses everything great about a Sleep Token song: There’s some pianos, some thumping 808s, a huge metal drop, some soaring melodies. It’s great, and caters to both newcomers and die-hard Sleep Token devotee’. “Emergence” goes hard, next question.
-
“Infinite Baths”
As shown by “Blood Sport,” “Missing Limbs” and of course the beloved “Euclid,” Sleep Token always knows how to end an album. “Infinite Baths” begins its ascension almost immediately, with Vessel’s song writing and voice sweeping up to the heavens. Then, out of nowhere, the track nose dives into the gutter, shifting into Sleep Token’s most punishing track ever made. Vessel snarls and growls, screaming his way to the finish line with such intensity I thought Will Ramos of Lorna Shore had stepped into the fold. This is a fantastic album-capper that reassures the band’s longtime fans it still knows how to rock out.
-
“Caramel”
Never have I heard Sleep Token’s vibe so perfectly encapsulated then with the lyric: “Right foot on the roses/ Left foot on the landmine.” The reggaetón-inflected groove of “Caramel” shouldn’t work, and Vessel’s shift from sing-rapping to snarling screams shouldn’t work — but my god does it sound good. This is one the bands wildest songs, and effectively shows just how many sounds they can master unapologetically. If there’s one song that will expose metal to its largest audience in decades, it will be this one.
-
“Look to Windward”
“Look to Windward,” named in reference to T.S. Elliot’s 1922 poem “The Waste Land”, which explores the laws of unintended consequences, is a transmuting whirl of an opener. Stuffed with dial-tone synths, trap drums, strings, piano chords, and suffocating guitars, the song thrashes about like ocean waves in a thunderstorm. It’s a harrowing first impression that pushes back against any expectations one might have when entering Vessel’s world. “Look to Windward” is an almost-eight-minute reminder to fasten our seatbelts and stow our tray tables.
-
“Gethsemane”
“Gethsemane” is one of the best Sleep Token songs ever made. Merging folk, funk, hip-hop and punishing metal, the end result is completely arresting. The band’s superpower has always been convincing its listeners that a song is over before barreling into a second and sometimes third act. “Gethsemane” masters that formula, swirling between genres like a strong breeze all before climaxing with trunk rattling bass and Vessel spitting some serious bars. “And this throne didn’t come with a gun, so I’ve got a different energy,” he raps. “Gethsemane” is Sleep Token asserting its dominance as one of metal’s most bizarre bands, adding further intrigue and existential depth to an already-fascinating group.
