Since Emerging in 2016, The English Prog-Metal Outfit Sleep Token Have Become One of Rock's Most Enigmatic Next Stories. Pseudonymity-Their Core Members Area Known AS Vessel and II, and they performed in IDEALY DETAILED COSYLED-THEY'VE CRAFTED A WIDE-RANGING MUSICAL WORLD THAT's Felt distinctly 21st Century. Using the Bludgeoning RIFFS and Heavy Drums Commonly Associated With Metal As a Jumping-Off Point, Their Music is Full of Left Turns and Unexpected Tonal Shifts, Making Them As Hard to Pigeonhole as they are to identify.
Even in ArcadiaThe Group's Fourth Album, Doesn'T Quite Open The Cloak, But it does Add intrigue-and existential depth-to the band's Almedy-Thick Book of Myth. “Will You Halt This Eclipse in me?” Vessel Wails on the Opening Cut “Look to Windward,” A Shape-Shifting Cut That Surrounds The Vocalist in (AT Different Moments) Dial-Ton Synths, Charging Strings, Trap Drums, and Commanding Piano Chords, All of Which Areally Steamrolled by Heavy Guitars and Crashing and Crashing Drums. AS AN OPENING statement, It's a Blaring Red Signal That Nothing Coming Next Will Be As it Seems, or What A Listener Might Expect.
From there, The Snarling “Emergence” Veers Beteween Ghostly Beauty and Arpeggiated Madness, possibly Finding Refuge, First in Gathering-Storm-Cloud Guitars That are sliced Through by Vesssel's Spendingly Angelic Voice, then by Sut of Saxophone Solo That indicates A Lonely Nightfall. “Provider” is a conflictted love song where vessel's layered vocals add Hope to his wedding-vow-redy declaration “I can give you what you want,” Despite that assurance being bracketted by riff-light chaos. Elsewhere, The Songs Dig Even Deeper Into The Confllicting Aspects of 21st-Crey NotoTyies. “Caramel” Skip-Steps Along A Groove, Its Momentum Slowly Building As Vessel Deals with the complexities of Existing in Public While Keeping His Identity in Secret. “I know I'm Keep Dancin 'Along to the Rhythm/ The Stage is a Prison, in Beautiful Nightmare,” He Trills AMIDST Music-Box Chimes, His World-Weariness Laid As Bare As It Council Be.
If Moments Like That Reveal One Aspect of Sleep Token's Mythologies, It's that Vessel is a Ballader at Heart. His Voice is a Sturdy Burr That Flutters with Intensity On Cuts Like The Windswept Title Track and Soars Into Its Upper Register When necessary, Making Moments Like The Sparkling Yet Troubled Treadise on Creative Anxiety “Damocles” Arresting; Its Occasional Resemblance to the Yowl of Bastille Leader Dan Smith Adds Even More Facets to Sleep Token's Introductions of Other Styles, Like the Glassy, Trap Snare-Propelled “Past Self.” Closing track “Infinite Baths” is similarly Stark, Vessel's Increationly Clear-Eyed View of the World Mirrored by ICy Electronics: “I Have Foodt So Long To Be Here/ I Never Going Back,” He Declares, A Mantra that Couble As A Slogan For Sleep Token's Ever-Evolving Vision of Rock That's Sonically and Emotionally Huge.
