Ethereal Metal

Ryan Murray | Co-Owner | Chief Editor | Contributor | Photographer

r.m.music84@gmail.com

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If Take Me Back to Eden was a transcendental milestone — an offering of divine intent, then Even In Arcadia is the reckoning that follows. It’s what happens when the dreamer wakes. Sleep Token has never played by the rules of genre or expectation, but this record doesn’t just bend those expectations—it dissolves them. What remains is something fractured yet full, cracked but glistening. The sound of a band no longer reaching upward toward the myth, but collapsing inward to examine the cost of it.

The descent begins with Look to Windward, a warning shot and a crucible. Siren-like synths spiral around whispered confessions, only to shatter under orchestral pressure. The track swells, falters, and then flares—a cold piano line threads beneath Vessel’s cry of “Will you halt this eclipse in me?” before collapsing into discordant strings and silence. It’s a moment that feels cinematic, but not in the glossy sense—instead, it’s jagged and intimate, the sound of something unraveling. This is not the armor-clad deity of past records. This is Sleep Token with the mask slipping.

The genre-bending Emergence was fans’ first glimpse into this new era when it dropped on March 13th—and it wasn’t what anyone expected. A track that fuses pop, djent, synth, hip-hop, and even jazz? That’s right—jazz. The saxophone solo alone could claw through your ribcage. Somehow, it all coheres. It’s a perfect first view of what Even In Arcadia aims to do: dismantle the boundaries and let emotion lead.

This thread continues through Past Self and Dangerous, two of the most accessible yet devastating pieces in Sleep Token’s catalogue. The former is stripped bare, leaning on lyricism and a haunting delivery: “Are you gonna dance on the line with me? You know it’s not a game or fantasy.” Simplicity is the weapon here. Meanwhile, Dangerous struts into R&B and trap territory with a glimmer of calculated bravado—but the facade slips, revealing the bruised heart beneath. Both tracks don’t just invite you in—they make you complicit in the unraveling.

And then there’s Caramel, a sugar-drenched descent into fame’s dark underbelly. Its reggaeton pulse lulls you, but the lyrics reveal the rot beneath the gloss: “I guess that’s what I get for trying to hide in the limelight.” It’s a paradox—bright and bitter—and the track’s hollow gleam becomes part of the message. Vessel isn’t mythologizing the cost of fame here; he’s choking on it.

All of this builds toward the title track, Even In Arcadia, the album’s crown jewel and emotional fulcrum. Fans may recognize this one from the sheet music teaser posted to then private Instagram accounts @featheredhost and @houseveridian—an early omen that something sacred was coming. The track opens with somber beauty, pulling heavier than gravity before unfolding into a solemn hymn. “Come now, swing wide those gates. Cuz I have paid my penance kindly when in time for judgement day…” It’s not just a final confession—it’s a reckoning. The line “It seems even in Arcadia you walk beside me still. Have you been waiting long for me?” echoes like a forgotten prophecy—grief entwined with fate. Sleep becomes myth incarnate, ever watching, ever near. And when the cello arrives—slow, spectral, and aching—it moves like a phantom oracle, cloaking the song in a sorrow that feels sacred. This isn’t merely an ending. It’s a haunting.

From there, Provider offers momentary reprieve—almost pop in structure, but warped through the band’s increasingly unpredictable lens. Its R&B flirtations shimmer, but there’s a coldness underneath. It’s more mask than mirror, more performance than plea. But don’t mistake its glow for gentleness—midway through, a djent-laced rupture splits the calm like a crack in the firmament, then vanishes, leaving you swallowed by the track’s aching gravity. And just when comfort seems possible, Damocles brings it crashing down. If any song encapsulates the emotional vertigo of this record, it’s this one. Vessel’s self-awareness bleeds through with “Well, I know I should be touring, I know these chords are boring, but I can’t always be killing the game…”—a meta moment that feels less ironic than it does exhausted. And when he gasps, “When the river runs dry and the curtain is called, how will I know if I can’t see the bottom?…” the illusion truly dies. The lyrics aren’t poetry for performance’s sake—they’re survival instinct. A hand reaching from beneath the flood.

Gethsemane answers that desperation with a full-blown exorcism. What begins in near-silence uncoils into one of the band’s most sprawling and volatile arrangements. A fragile opening—almost deceptively sweet—mutates into a storm of guitars, synths, and unrelenting catharsis. There are no clean edges here, only blood, breath, and the scream of someone clawing their way out of ruin. ‘I was waiting for you, when all along it was you with the countdown kill switch, and it was me with the blindfolds on.’ The chaos doesn’t subside, but it unveils the price.

And somehow, Infinite Baths still finds a way to ascend higher. The track moves from shimmering ambience into emotional annihilation. It’s gorgeous, harrowing, and elemental. The final moments explode with djent-infused fury before fading on that same intense riff into the darkness—just like Sleep. It’s the sound of a band offering not closure, but continuation. There is no clean ending here, only echoes.

In the end, though, this album feels undeniably necessary—the soundtrack to a band wrestling with its own mythology, confronting fame’s weight, and exploring the cost of being a myth in real-time. Even In Arcadia won’t win over everyone, and maybe that’s the point. For those still yearning for the divine clarity of Eden, this might feel like a fall from grace. But for those willing to step into the fracture, the fog, the blood—there’s something far more powerful here.

Even In Arcadia isn’t just a record—it’s a reckoning. Sleep Token has shattered expectations and bled through their mythology, confronting fame’s brutal cost and unveiling a band on the edge of transcendence. This is no myth, no divine ascension—this is the raw, relentless sound of a band collapsing inward to face their own truth. Because sometimes myths bleed.

And sometimes, that’s the most human thing of all.

VERDICT: 4.5/5.0

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