Sleep Token: Take Me Back To Eden
Album Rating: 9.5/10
What’s Inside
Sleep Token delivers a stunning finale to their conceptual album trilogy with Take Me Back To Eden
Since Sleep Token began breaking the internet back in January with singles from Take Me Back To Eden, the third and final album of a trilogy that started in 2019, fans have anxiously awaited the album’s full release. The new singles, namely The Summoning, combined with Sleep Token coming off a massive 2022 tour run, led to the band’s notoriety and fanbase exploding at an unprecedented pace. Entering 2023 with just under 300K Spotify monthly listeners, the band recently surpassed 2 million monthly listeners.
On Friday, Sleep Token generously rewarded with an epic saga of an album that perfectly concludes the trilogy and delivers beyond realms both real and dreamed on all levels.
Sleep Token takes its genre-melding sound to new heights
From start to finish, the enigmatic album transports listeners to a vivid, ethereal dream world through poetic, imagery-laden lyrics and a complex, layered, atmospheric soundscape. Already known for their masterful ability to turn genres on their head through captivatingly beautiful arrangements that fuse pop, R&B, gospel, and progressive metal in ways never imagined possible, Sleep Token even more boldly develops these elements throughout the album in surprising ways. If you think you know where any of these tracks are headed after the first minute or two- you don’t.
Just as diverse are the album’s juxtaposed lyrical themes that range from love and longing to loss and anguish, and from pain and desperation to self-reflection and growth, all while on a journey of repentance, healing, redemption, and letting go. The album takes listeners on this journey sonically using haunting synths and down-tuned breakdowns to create tension-building lows, and delicate, uplifting piano melodies and gospel-like choruses to create cathartic highs. All the while Vessel’s raw and vulnerable but powerful vocals serve to amplify the emotion in every moment of the experience.
Track Reviews
The first five tracks on Take Me Back to Eden are singles. The album begins with Chokehold, a track that opens with only an ambient, dissonantly distorted guitar and Vessel’s evocative vocals before groovy, gritty riffs accented by a sharp piano build together into one of the catchiest hooks and choruses on the album. If you want to introduce a non-metalhead friend to Sleep Token, this track is a great place to start.
The Summoning complements Chokehold’s grit and R&B grooves, but significantly amps up in intensity. The track jumps right in with low chugs paired with sensual vocals, which dial down into a cathartic, atmospheric chorus- before you are blindsided and plummeted into a nasty, djenty breakdown that is, to this point, many would say is the heaviest in the band’s catalog. But in Sleep Token fashion, the surprises aren’t over yet. After an ambient interlude, the song closes out with the chorus re-arranged as a provocative funk track, invoking an initial sense of bewilderment before leaving you wanting more.
Granite takes things down a notch and crosses into pop territory for the first time on the album. A spry synth line and minimalistic trap-influenced percussion allow Vessel’s vocals to come back to the forefront before the track stretches out and layers in some heaviness with impressive drum work and signature Sleep Token distortion.
Aqua Regia also starts out in pop territory, driven at first by nostalgic synths and R&B influenced vocals. But instead of building into a breakdown, the song has a signature Sleep Token surprise and leads into a beautiful, unexpected, jazzy piano solo. A clean guitar accompaniment in the refrain keeps the track groundedly mellow, before all elements come together in a layered final chorus.
The mellowness does not last long as you are immediately pelted with Vore’s punishing blackglaze riffs, blast beats, and Vessel’s best and longest duration of screams in the band’s history. When the track finally relents, Vessel’s vocal range is on full display as he delivers the high notes of a clean, visceral chorus that enfolds the listener into an ethereal, distorted dreamscape.
Ascensionism is the first song on the album that had not been previously released as a single, and it is a masterpiece. Coming in at just over 7 minutes, the intensity of Ascensionism ascends and descends throughout its entirety, moving through an array of musical styles along the way. A soft piano intro beautifully complements Vessel’s vocals, which are so raw and delicate they feel like they could break. A quiet interlude serves as a transition point to shift the track into full-on R&B territory with a soulful bluesy melody and a trap-influenced back beat you will quickly find yourself moving your head to.
The song descends through the piano, resetting the track before it ascends to an atmospheric crescendo and an explosive, djenty, Meshuggah “ObZen”-like breakdown. The song takes a final descent to the piano melody before a tension-shifting Vessel scream leads to its last ascension. This time the buildup is infused with layers of dissonance as the gospel-sung lyrics “You make me wish I could disappear” hang in the air before you are sent off to ascend with a parting breakdown.
Are you really okay? begins with an uplifting, clean guitar riff reminiscent of Queensryche’s “Silent Lucidity”, which conflicts with its lyrics. Lyrically, the track is an introspective journey of someone trying to support a loved one who is experiencing mental health struggles- beginning with reflecting on feelings of guilt and helplessness, to emotional pleas for them to not hurt themself, through the final realization that you can’t fix someone else.
The contrast between the lyrics and the song’s cathartic energy serves to reinforce this realization, and to invoke a sense of release and hope to accompany the act of making one final plea. While perhaps it is one of the albums more musically simplistic tracks, its lyrics are anything but.
The lyrical theme of longing for an elusive love in The Apparition is perfectly brought to life with tension-building lingering clean guitar riffs, soulful vocal harmonies, and synths that create a haunting lullaby that carries throughout the song. A trap-beat infused, R&B influenced second verse continue to build on the tension before the track unleashes a hard-hitting chorus and more djenty breakdowns.
The album then winds its way back into pop territory with the perky synths of its final single release, DYWTYLM. While it is a solid track, it is arguably the most mellow and straightforward on the album, lacking the genre-shifting turns and unexpected elements of its counterparts.
Rain follows a similar composition structure to The Apparition, but sonically and lyrically serves as its antithesis. The evocative, tender piano, the R&B infused breakdowns paired with Vessel’s emotive vocals, and a gospel-style outro invoke a catharsis that is fitting for the song’s lyrical theme- experiencing a long-awaited for love.
The title track, Take Me Back to Eden, is an 8-minute journey that captures the essence of the album in one epic song. The song starts its journey with tension-building vocal harmonies and atmospheric synths that lead to a battle hymn-like chorus before a signature token Sleep Token breakdown kicks in. A brief synth interlude sets the stage for a rap refrain, and an R&B-infused second chorus continues to elevate the tension before descending into a piano interlude. The interlude resets the song, and when Vessel’s crisp vocals return, the track takes a cathartic shift with gospel-like harmonies carrying a transcendent chorus. Lyrics from Chokehold are layered into what first appears to be the beginning of an outro, making the album come full circle- until one of the heaviest moments in the album comes abruptly with an assaulting minute-long down-tuned breakdown laced with gut-wrenching screams.
Euclid is the final track on the album and of the Sundowning/Tomb/Eden trilogy. It is a song about redemption and personal growth. The song about recognizing that you must close one chapter to open a new one- and about the painful realization that sometimes, certain people and things in our life aren’t meant for that new chapter. Vessel’s gripping, heart ridden vocals depict the desire to move forward, while the uplifting piano adds a layer of nostalgia as the lyrics journey through coming to terms with, reminiscing on, and making peace with the past. The song builds up to a climatic sense of closure and letting go, and accomplishes this with perfection by coming full circle and tying in a refrain from the very first song (“The Night Does Not Belong To God” ) from Sleep Token’s first album (Sundowning).
I have never cried while hearing a song for the first time, but the song’s lyrics were so evocatively relatable, its arrangement so cathartic, and the closing so beautifully perfect that I inexplicably found myself blinking away tears. I don’t know what the future holds for Vessel and Sleep Token, and while I, like many, hope that they continue to create new music, if they never produced another note, they have left us with a trio of masterfully enigmatic albums that are of unmatched substance, depth, and creativity, and concluded the saga with their best offering yet that is Take Me to Eden.
You can check out the full album on Spotify or other streaming services.
