I’m glad it took me this long to finally review the new SLEEP TOKEN album, “Even in Arcadia,” released on May 9th, 2025, as the band’s first full-length for RCA Records. Now, the album has hit number one on the US Billboard chart and set two new records for rock music, and the amount of online hate for these British mask-wearing metal rogues seems to have reached new record heights just as well. The band’s signature quirk of mixing R&B, pop, and metal sure has rubbed some gatekeepers the wrong way since day one but, now, with the band having risen out of obscurity to one hell of a great fame, the explicitly vocalized hatred is spilling out of proportion, coming off even more ridiculous than the hyperboles of the over-hyped fans. So, I reckon the band must have done something right. You simply do not deserve this kind of hatred for being mediocre. The band has ruffled the feathers for some time, and I guess the album title refers to their struggles along the way, making it to the top, as it could be taken as an alternative wording for struggles in paradise. Then again, I’m not really familiar with the band’s mythology as I did not jump on the bandwagon until their previous, breakthrough album “Take Me Back to Eden” in 2023. My newbie take on the matter would be that the previous endeavor pleaded to be taken back to the primordial paradise, and now that the wish has come true, it turns out it came with a steep price.
The new album opens with a cinematic, 8-minute epic, “Look to Windward.” I guess it is way too much to ask from some tr00, old-school metalheads to listen to pop-tinged synth riffs for the first 3 minutes before the first djenty breakdown takes place. The staccato synth motif has a nice Antonio Vivaldi air about it, resonating with the air of those mellow sections in his “The Four Seasons” suite. Not very metal, I’ll give you that, but so what? After the first breakdown/chorus, the verses traverse even further from the standard metal sandbox, resonating with an almost early Sam Smith-like air. Yeah, I can see why this could be the very last straw for some, but still, no one is taking those vintage thrash-metal classics away from them, so it’s a bit hard to fathom all that hatred. Besides, Sam Smith used to do pretty decent stuff before switching to that high-octane Illuminati pop.
Speaking of pop, SLEEP TOKEN is not even the first metal act to flirt so openly with the clichés of contemporary pop and, to give credit where it is due, he does it quite well – especially in the singles, “Emergence” and “Caramel.” Let’s be honest, metalheads like to listen to pop music, at least as a guilty pleasure – why else would we have so many metal covers of pop songs? The single, “Emergence” also features nice saxophone lines by Gabi Rose, echoing those smokey R&B classics from yesteryear – y’know, George Michael, Sade, the whole lot of them. The saxophone is one of the most underrated metal instruments, if you ask me.
Okay, so far, the songs have been slapping pretty hard. Third up, “Past Life” is the first track that does not instantly rub me the right way. Maybe it sounds a bit too much like a scrapped song from the Taylor Swift songbook. I mean, she has some banging tracks, too, but this is not like one of those. I guess this is one of those SLEEP TOKEN songs that have made the haters so damn upset. Yeah, sure, this is not metal, not by a long shot. I wouldn’t mind if the song were a little bit better but, even as a pop song, it kinda sucks by being a bit too cheesy.
That said, SLEEP TOKEN corrects the course immediately after this somewhat cringeworthy relapse. “Dangerous” is an atmospheric banger that could fit almost any TESSERACT album with just a little bit more progressive twists and turns. The band’s primus motor, Vessel, drops some nice falsetto vocals, too. I could say the same thing about quite a few tracks on this album, actually. If TESSERACT ever were to write a catchy pop tune, everybody would fall in love with it, no doubt. So, it is quite peculiar that the haters use that line of reasoning against SLEEP TOKEN. Yeah, they write catchy pop tunes with djenty breakdowns, so what? If mainstream pop tunes used more blast beats and guttural vocals, the world would probably not be such a shitty place, I reckon.
The title track does not even try to resemble anything metal-oriented. It is a piano ballad that builds up momentum toward the end just magnificently. The more I listen to it, the more I am inclined to dub it a stand-out track on the album. It is expansive and intense even without the aid of a massive wall of distortion. Then, I must admit that the overindulgent use of effects on the vocals sometimes feels a bit overkill; on this song, the vocoder, Autotune, and whatnot really work wonders.
So, halfway into the album, only one track has felt like a slight disappointment. How does the rest hold up? “Provider” is a nice cross between Frank Ocean and atmospheric djent. Then, “Damocles” feels a bit like another Taylor Swift leftover, but overall, the album selection still features more killers than fillers. Finally, the last two tracks tilt the scales a nod or two further toward killers. “Gethsemane” is a nice atmospheric popsicle with nice breakdowns in the middle, and the closer, “Infinite Baths,” is even more ambient, almost a hymn-like closure to this sonic journey. I guess I like this new album even more than the previous one; while I was almost instantly fascinated by the wild mix of metal and whatnot, some of the songs on “Take Me Back to Eden” felt a bit gimmicky, whereas these new songs do not. Besides, I like their attitude; SLEEP TOKEN does not seem to give a damn about whether their music meets the criteria of tr00 metal – as it damn well should be! However, I’m afraid that those few weaker moments are enough to drop this album from my 10 Best Metal Albums of 2025 list because the international competition is that fierce this year. “Even in Arcadia” is very likely to rank in the top 20, though, even though I’m well aware that some people will disapprove of me dubbing this band metal to begin with. Well, guess what? I really don’t care.
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist
- Look to Windward
- Emergence
- Past Self
- Dangerous
- Caramel
- Even in Arcadia
- Provider
- Damocles
- Gethsemane
- Infinite Baths
Lineup
Vessel – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass, production
II – drums, percussion
Label
RCA Records
Links
https://www.facebook.com/sleeptoken
