Stadium Arcadia! Sleep Token lead their flock into their dazzling new era at their most gigantic and impressive ritual to date.
What, reasonably, might one expect from Sleep Token’s first ritual of the Even In Arcadia era? A show that’s the biggest they’ve ever done. Vision? Ambition? Something even more laden with lore than normal? Would that it were so simple. Of all this century’s rock phenomena – Linkin Park, My Chem, Bring Me The Horizon, Slipknot, twenty one pilots – none have reached this position in such an off-road fashion as Vessel and his cohorts.
Those forebears rose along somewhat traditional roads, albeit in the fast lane. Sleep Token, however, feel out of control, like nobody actually knows how to steer and control this thing. Short of the meaning of life, with mathematical workings all shown, it’s hard to pitch expectation as they unveil their new chapter. Even In Arcadia comes having digested the mayhem of skipping through arenas like stepping stones and finding themselves as one of the biggest and most significant bands of their age. There is, even for them, a lot to corral.
They arrive in a cascade of pink petals with Look To Windward, and it’s immediately clear that this isn’t just a bigger, brighter, bolder version of previous shows, as had sometimes previously been the case, but an entire levelling up of the whole operation. Even for those crammed into the back of this beyond-stuffed field, it’s impressive.
The stage is an enormous, multi-layered pink castle based on the album artwork, crowned in the middle with the band’s sigil logo, itself a miniature Pink Floyd light show. Drummer II sits majestically up on the first floor, opposite a trio of masked backing singers, while down below bassist III and guitarist IV look genuinely ghostly in their new duds.
It is, naturally, Vessel who commands attention, though, with his new golden shoulder armour and feathery finery. He looks the shit. And if previous muttered criticisms had it that Sleep Token weren’t quite dominating their big stages, here that’s all left in the dust. There isn’t a moment where you aren’t being dazzled, where they aren’t commanding your attention.
The light show is fantastic, both in its subtleties, like when Vessel appears alone on keyboard at the start of Rain, and its ‘turn them all on and make them flash really fast’ moments of intensity. During Emergence, meanwhile, there’s an actual waterfall coming out of the logo. If the stage is, indeed, ‘A prison, a war of attrition’ as he describes it in Caramel, then it’s the sort that boomers angrily complain are too cushy. Indeed, it’s palatial.
Even in all this sensory bombast, it’s still striking just how lush and full and verdant everything sounds. Caramel is even more stickily gorgeous than on record. The way the tinkling electronics of Granite give way to its heavy, chugging final third is as dramatic and enormous as a falling ice shelf. Ditto the shifts in Even In Arcadia standout Damocles. It means you really feel the force of Vessel’s conviction, with each emotive outburst hitting hard and direct.
There are, of course, those who doubt Sleep Token’s ascension to this position. But even among fans, there’s curiosity as to just how they would tackle such big job. To both, they have an element of surprise and going back to the drawing board to build a new world to occupy the space they now inhabit. This isn’t just a few more bits added for a slightly bigger venue, this is a band recalibrating knowing what they are now, not running to keep up with themselves, but finding themselves and being able to bring their biggest ambitions to life.
Roll on Download. It’s going to be spectacular.
Catch Sleep Token at Download Festival next weekend. Get your tickets now.
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