vote
7.0
- Band:
Sleep Token - Duration: 00:56:30
- Available since: 09/05/2025
- Label:
-
RCA
We have just witnessed the rise to the throne of two popes capable of collecting consensus on both banks of the Atlantic – the newly elected Leo XIV and Pope V perpetual of the Ghost, fresh from first place in the American charts – but the attention of the Metal community, starting from the sector printing, at the moment is all for the new album of the Sleep Token, returned with a fourth disc that has actually had little. About twenty percent, if we were to measure it according to the time in which there are distorted guitars, in the excellent excellent “look to winward”).
On the other hand, the stylistic melting pot has always been one of the distinctive features of the English band, together with the mystery on the identity of the vessel frontman, a ghost behind the mask (he has never granted an interview since the debut album came out), in some ways surprising in a hyperconnected era like the current one. If the first two chapters of the trilogy, “Sunday” and “This Place Will Become Your Tomb”, still owned a solid tech/alternative metal soul, although mixed with different genres, the third seal, “Take me back to Eden”, pushed this contamination to the extreme, widening more and more the sound palette with robust doses of hip hop, trap, r & b, Hyper pop and electronics.
With “Even in Arcadia” we move at two speeds: on the one hand the sound trademark remains the mixture of genres, on the other the disc as a whole is more intimate and linear than the triptych that preceded it.
The ability to mix a pop sensitivity capable of stroking the soul ropes with glimpses of surgical violence such as Lucio Fontana's cuts finds full expression in the aforementioned opening track (inspired by the poem of TS Eliot “The desolate land”), with an 8bit synth that creates the ideal climax before a breakdown worthy of Ihsahn, and in the final “Infinite Baths”, where The Pinkfloydian reference from the one to a stormy ending as only the best Defones can be.
Also interesting “Emergence”, a pastiche which combines metal, trap-pop and jazz with a sax that would not have been sorry to the latest Avenged Sevendfold, while the central part of the tracklist proceeds a little with the automatic pilot and the pharmacist's balance according to a consolidated formula: “Dangerous” and “Provider” seem to be a mash-up from Usher and John Legend with a breachdown A random Djent band, and also the elements of partial novelty, such as the “Caramel” reggaeton, do not hold the comparison with the creative exploits of the past, despite the excellent battery patterns and without taking anything away from the lyrical meaning of the piece (in this case a dissing of Vessel to the expectations of his fans). Similar speech for “Damocles” (a title that immediately reveals the pressure consequent to the fame), in which the amalgam this time has been more successful, but the vocal line simply does not take off.
Paradoxically, considering the path for accumulation done so far, the subtraction work is probably the most interesting aspect of the disc: the title-track, only floor, voice and violin waiting for a outburst that will never arrive, is one of more exciting and theatrically intense moments in the discography of the st; “Past self” vice versa, in his being a blatantly pop song, perfect for accompanying a video of Tiktok, has the advantage of simplicity and showing off the undoubted vocal skills of the frontman.
The pinnacle of success – first places in the rankings, position from Headliner to the download festival with the earning record of the last twenty years – is inversely proportional to qualitative growth, with the first step back after three albums in growing: a film already seen in the past and fruit more than that sown so far than of marketing strategies (although the contract with a major like the RCA helps the media exposure), The vacuous proclamations on the 'future of metal' – for which you pray to intercom elsewhere – “Even in Arcadia” has the undoubted merit of knowing how to bring the future closer, read young people, to Metal.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
