Sleep Token

Enigmatic British band Sleep Token combine post-rock, post-classical, and post-metal tropes with soulful indie pop vocals into a blend that sounds like nothing else. They released their innovative debut album, Sundowning, in 2019 and found mainstream success two years later with the U.K.-charting This Place Will Become Your Tomb. The anonymous, masked collective unveiled their third full-length effort, Take Me Back to Eden, in 2023. The album quickly became an international success, cracking the higher reaches of the charts in multiple countries. The group first appeared in 2016 with the self-released single "One." Their approach was unique, to say the least: Fronted by a mysterious masked figure known only as Vessel and professing to worship an ancient deity called Sleep, they framed themselves as a kind of cult whose songs were all acts of worship. Sleep Token's music was equally original, blending tranquil post-rock instrumentation and soulful falsetto vocals with sudden eruptions of tech-metal brutality. Frenzied online speculation ensued as to the identity of the members, with the likes of Sam Smith, Hozier, and Bastille's Dan Smith being put forward as candidates. The influence of artists like Deftones, Meshuggah, Explosions in the Sky, Bon Iver, and Ólafur Arnalds was apparent, but the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Sleep Token signed to Basick for their 2017 single "Two," then self-released a few more singles in 2018 before making the move to the Universal-distributed Spinefarm for their 2019 debut, Sundowning. Over a period of six months, very track off the LP was issued as a digital single prior to its release. With a bigger budget, the album presented a widescreen version of the band's sound, with more electronic elements, a pronounced R&B edge to the vocals, and a sludgier post-metal feel to the heavier parts. A deluxe version of Sundowning featuring four extra tracks appeared in 2020. 2021's This Place Will Become Your Tomb provided the band with their first chart positions, debuting at number 39 on the U.K. Albums Chart and 13 on the Scottish Albums Chart. Their third album, Take Me Back to Eden, was released in May of 2023. Produced by bandleader Vessel with help from engineer Carl Brown, the album's epic and somewhat chaotic sound was an immediate hit, quickly charting in various countries and cracking the Top 20 in Australia, the U.S., Germany, the U.K., and beyond. ~ John D. Buchanan