It is from 2016 debut that the English Sleep Token are one of the most mysterious realities of the contemporary prog metal panorama, and also a success story. They love anonymity. Hidden by the pseudonym Vessel and wearing very elaborate costumes, the singer has built a musical universe with the band that can only belong to the 21st century. Heavy riffs and pounding battery are distinctly metal elements, yet their music often takes unexpected directions and turns towards unexpected shades. Enclose them in a category is not simple.
Even in Arcadia It is their fourth album and does not raise the veil of mystery that surrounds them, but rather adds new layers of complexity and existential depth to their mythology. “Will you stop this eclipse inside me?” Asks Vessel in Look to Windward. It is the song that opens the disc and is a sound journey in continuous metamorphosis: metal synths, arches, trap rhythm, dramatic piano and finally an explosion of distorted guitars. The band immediately makes it clear what to expect: the unexpected.
The journey continues with Emergence in which ethereal atmospheres and crazy arpeggios are alternated and then ended up in the midst of a storm of guitars poured by celestial vocal parts. There is even an solo of night and lonely saxophone. In Providera ballad of tormented love, Vessel promises that “I can give you what you want”, but it does so in a whirlwind of chaotic riffs.
Other pieces tell the contradictions of notoriety in the 21st century. CaramelFor example, it is a reflection on the fame and identity made by someone who hides his identity behind a mask. “I will continue to dance following the rhythm / the stage is a prison, a beautiful nightmare”, sings Vessel between shutters from dear sounds in the passage of the disc in which he puts himself naked.
Moments of the genre make it clear that Vessel is basically a balladeer. Passes from the whispers to the falsetti with an impressive versatility, as in the title track where he uses the highest singing register or in Damoclessort of small treatise on creative anxiety. Here and there, singing can remember that of Dan Smith of the Bastille, which opens the music of the Sleep token to other styles still as happens in Past self with its rolling trap.
The album ends with Infinite Bathsone of the most bare and raw pieces. On a icy electronic carpet, Vessel sings with a clarity of thought that in other songs did not have: “I fought for a long time to be here / I will no longer go back”. It is a kind of mantra and, why not, a manifesto for the Sleep Token and for their idea of rock in constant evolution and powerful from a sound and emotional point of view.
From Rolling Stone Us.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
