Hi, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of the new Sleep Token album, Even in Arcadia.

Here we have the fourth full-length LP from UK music act Sleep Token, who are recently coming off the incredible commercial success of their last record, Take Me Back to Eden, their 2023 album that really put the band on the map in ways that were both positive and negative.

Now, it is true that Sleep Token, in the modern music landscape, is definitely a force to make note of, with millions of monthly listeners across all streaming platforms. And apparently, Take Me Back to Eden was Spotify's most streamed metal album the year it came out. But the metal community is simultaneously where the band has historically caught much of the flack you see about them online, with many listeners and fans criticizing them as being a metal band in and in name only.

Because yes, while many of Sleep Token's tracks do contain a lot of very heavy, thick guitars with that trademark, a djent-type tone, that sounds like what you would get if you could take a fucking power line and strap it to a guitar, distort it and down tune it. But by that same token, these more heavy and aggressive passages on their records feel almost like a shroud meant to edify what it is the band actually would like to be doing. And that's writing very moody pop tunes with a alternative RnB flair on the vocals, which for sure, I can't deny that this is most certainly a combination of sounds not a lot of artists are working with right now. Nobody else in the rock scene today is doing quite what Sleep Token is doing at the level and visibility that they are, which for sure, that alone is going to be the thing that attracts listeners by virtue of the fact that, Oh, this is new. This is different. This is cool.

And Sleep token is obviously not the first band in the metal world to have crossover appeal or even incorporate pop influences in what they do in some way. Not the first band to get hate for doing that, too. But still, knowing all of this context, that did not stop me from feeling like Take Me Back to Eden was just such a gross record. And while I do think the influences that go into Sleep token's music, it is an likely series of pairings, the way they go about pulling it off, I feel like, showcases a very surface level appreciation for all of these sounds at best. Because, yeah, on any given Sleep Token song, you could hear elements of metal music and alternative rock and pop and RnB and even some electronic music, too.

But, yeah, I feel like the band is not pulling from the best and brightest of what those genres have to offer when they're working those elements into their own stuff. In fact, I feel like this band continues to be something somebody would recommend to me right after saying they listen to everything except rap and country. Or I don't know, I feel like another way you could quantify Sleep Token's vibe is that it's maybe metal for Disney adults, which, sadly, I think is also the case for the band's latest LP here.

One positive thing I can say about it, though, is that despite this thing having about an hour of run time, it's a very breezy hour, really flies right by. But the reason I think that is – this record really has demanded less of me a listening experience than I think any metal album I've heard this year, even shorter metal albums, because the sound really is so plain and uninspired. You could tune it out quite easily, especially as I think the group is leaning more into their pop influences on this record.

I guess why wouldn't they? It is one of the few things that actually sets them apart from other groups. They're doing it to the point where it feels almost like they're dropping the metal pretense entirely, such as on "Past Self", which to my ears, feels like a pop-centric Ed Sheeran song played at .75 speed. Or even "Dangerous", which the only metal bits of this song are the loud, roaring guitars just blandly screaming away in the background in the second half of the track, which from a musical standpoint, the track doesn't even need to really work or function as a song. They're just tacked on, just like many of the other metal trappings throughout the rest of the tracklist here.

But still, what's truly more annoying than the fact that this band still to this day comes across as thinking they're deeper than they actually are is just how horrid the sound they create is when all its various elements are coming together. Because once more, the guitar tones on this record suck ass. And as far as anything djent-adjacent goes, the riffs are very dime a dozen. You can hear pretty much these guitars done much better in a myriad of different places.

Then there's the drumming across this record, which I will say do come across as being played with a lot of proficiency, but they just have this very thin and sterile sound of them for the duration of the album. So even they fail to be like a silver lining truly in this very dark cloud.

Then there's the singing, which I still, to this day, on this new record, cannot stand. The faux-sensual vibrato is just gross. And as if that wasn't bad enough, on numerous tracks of this record, the singing and vocals are just touched up so much to the point where they sound like AI or just entirely fake. And I just don't see why the singing needs to be obnoxious and come across as artificial at the same time.

This just does not really match with the fact that a lot of the writing on these tracks is meant to convey feelings of, I don't know, love or at least be a little endearing.

In fact, every attempt at trying to incorporate bit of groove and humanity into these tracks just falls flat, whether it be through the theatrical, moody, Melanie Martinez-type music box melodies on "Caramel", which also has a reggaeton groove to it for no reason whatsoever. But even when this album is really trying to push it in terms of heaviness and aggression and screams, in the middle of the opening track or in the second half of "Caramel" that I just mentioned, or the closing song. It all either just feels like too little too late or you're just doing this to validate how goofy the other bits of the album are.

Yeah, just annoying music, hideous sound, very bland, boring, uninspired writing, numerous points where I'm just picking up on way more cringe lyrics than, frankly, I should. And once again, a presentation that tries to pass this album off as being this really thoughtful, deep, moody, cerebral experience, when in actuality, it's just mediocre pop with super loud gent guitars.

This record truly does feel like getting pissed on and being told that it's rain. There's not really any big improvements or changes to make note of outside of, once again, them embracing, I think, their pop side a little bit more on a few of these tracks and singles.

But yeah, once again, boring, uninspired, and uninteresting album from Sleep Token, who, with this unadventurous album, are even grinding what little novelty they have into the dirt, too, which is why I'm feeling a strong 1 to a light 2 on this project.

Anthony Fantano, Sleep token, forever.