Slipknot. Ghost. Sleep Token. It's obvious that metal fans love a good mystery, even more when its wrapped in a metal-friendly package. But no band in the (contemporary) metal pantheon can compare to the sheer meteoric success of the UK's Sleep Token, a band who have packed arenas and venues around the world whilst dodging every traditional promotional route, even refusing to do interviews.
A big part of that is their unique, boundary-crossing sound. Mixing R&B, metalcore and tech metal elements, Sleep Token sit somewhere outside the usual metal scene spheres whilst appealing to fans of all of them - and even beyond. With three albums, two EPs and a bunch of stand-alone songs fleshing out their mysterious lore, we figured it high time to dive deep into the world of Sleep Token and decipher some of the possible meanings behind their songs. Tin-foil hats on folks: we're going deep.
One EP (2016)
The start of the journey, Sleep Token's lore was already rich and mysterious when the band unveiled their debut EP One in 2016. Just three songs long, the EP nonetheless set out their unique aesthetic and sound, its mix of R&B and tech metal elements making Sleep Token feel unlike just about anybody else in metal at the time.
Thread The Needle
Released in September 2016 as the lead single for debut EP One, Thread The Needle is the first song Sleep Token ever put out. It weaves together sensual alt pop and djent riffs, loading it all with layers of enigma. Is it a lamentation of a toxic relationship, a song about a bloke gagging for a shag or something deeper and more mysterious? The imagery suggests a sexual undercurrent. ‘Bury me inside this labyrinthine bed,’ sings masked frontman Vessel. ‘We can feel that time is dilated.’
Fans have theorised that Thread The Needle is about Vessel’s obsession with Sleep, the enigmatic deity that hovers over Sleep Token’s entire existence, which makes it their origin story. Yet it could be a metaphorical tale about a real relationship – one whose course is charted throughout the rest of the EP.
Fields Of Elation
Maintaining the themes of Thread The Needle, Fields Of Elation deals with adorationtinged toxicity. ‘The daylight recedes in unison. This room buries the hours like death,’ Vessel says at the start of the song. He could be referencing sex, staying in a bedroom while the sun sets, but as Fields Of Elation proceeds from subtle industrial music to heaving metal, the lyrics take on a horrible dependent edge.
‘Your name is a sin I breathe, like oxygen,’ begins the second verse. By the end, Vessel is so trapped inside this relationship that he repeatedly declares, ‘I’m losing my faith in our lives apart.’
When The Bough Breaks
The seven-and-a-half minute When The Bough Breaks brings the EP’s thematic trilogy to a traumatic head. The more troubling parts of the relationship at its heart are brought to the foreground. ‘Everything we touch turns water into blood,’ runs the chorus, while Vessel accuses his unspecified partner, ‘You don’t really love, you just hate to be alone,’ before desperately unloading the line, ‘Don’t lie to me!’
Those bitter words, combined with the song’s title, make it obvious that this is a split – though whether it’s between two people or Vessel and the deity with which he’s obsessed is a different matter.
Two EP (2017)
Released in July 2017, Sleep Token had begun to spread their wings into the wider world. While it would be a few months before they'd officially hit the road for the first of many rituals to come, the band had begun to experiment with some of the "hidden codes and connected themes" cyphers that would send fans wild for years to come. Three tracks, all named for geographical locations, this was Sleep Token coming into their own.
Calcutta
The three songs on Sleep Token’s second EP are named after historical settlements, each one older than the last – seemingly a metaphor for the decay of a relationship. Calcutta is named after the British-Indian settlement that was established in the late 17th Century, though the region has been inhabited for more than 2,000 years.
The song sees Vessel sounding repaired by a new partner (or maybe Sleep). ‘Missing pieces find me,’ he intones at one point, later adding, ‘You are more than warm belief / Melting skywards / More than silence broken / I’m whole again.’ Spoiler alert: it won’t last.
Nazareth
Named after the millennia-old settlement in Israel (the birthplace of Jesus’s father Joseph, according to the Bible), Nazareth shifts between metal and more atmospheric sections. The lyrics are vividly violent, suggesting whatever relationship Vessel is singing about has taken a turn for the worse.
‘I’ll see you when the wrath comes knocking on your bedroom door with money,’ Vessel hisses at one point. It gets more vivid. ‘Let’s load the gun, make her eat the tape in the bathroom mirror,’ he sings in a disconcertingly angelic voice. ‘See if she can guess what a hollow point does to a naked body.’ Literal or metaphorical, they’re unquestionably furious.
Jericho
Cited as the world’s oldest walled city, Jericho has been inhabited for more than 11,000 years. The song that takes its name sees Vessel fixated on a previous relationship – possibly the one referenced in Nazareth. ‘Until I wake, I dine on old encounters,’ he intones. He seems to have moved on, though how that will play out isn’t clear. ‘You taste like new flesh – say my name again,’ he commands at one point. The quick bounce back and comparisons to past events suggest that, once again, it won’t last.
Jaws (2018)
Divorced from the storytelling of the first two EPS, Jaws sees Vessel beg for a seduced partner to open up emotionally. ‘Show me what you’ve lost and why you’re always taking it slow,’ he implores. ‘Show me what wounds you’ve got, show me love.’
Yet there’s something dangerous about the singer’s cagey partner. ‘Are you watching me with the eyes of a predator as you move towards the door?’ he wonders. The single’s artwork, which fills the outline of a shark’s mouth with pictures of flowers, also hints towards the person in question being a duplicitous one.
The Way That You Were (2018)
Sleep Token’s first original non-metal song (they had already recorded a cover of Outkast’s Hey Ya! by this point). Vessel hopes for his subject to return to their former self with such lyrics as, ‘And you think I don’t notice the way that you were, and act like you don’t feel it.’
Towards the end, he strongly suggests that whoever he’s talking to is losing their strength and happiness because of an abusive relationship: ‘How much did they hurt you? And how much did they break you?’ A romantic partner or Sleep? Only Vessel knows.
The Covers (2017/2020)
Given the sheer amount of lore and theorising surrounding each Sleep Token song, it’s not surprising that even the band’s choice of covers have come under scrutiny. In 2017 they released an unlikely piano ballad cover of hip hop duo Outkast’s 2003 megahit Hey Ya! – a song Outkast rapper André 3000 has said is “about people who stay together in relationships because of tradition… but you end up being unhappy for the rest of your life”.
Familiar, much? Two more similarly stripped-down covers followed three years later: Whitney Houston’s 80s pop hit I Wanna Dance With Somebody and Billie Eilish’s 2018 single When The Party’s Over, both recorded for 2020’s From The Room Below session. Both mine the same themes of desperation and loneliness, tying in with Sleep Token’s worldview.
Sundowning (2019)
On November 12, 2019 Sleep Token officially unveiled their first weighty opus. Building on the mystique and distinctive sonic template of their early EPs, their debut album proved immensely enriching for fans who were quickly becoming fascinated by their unusual approach to releases and promotion. In the run-up to release, the band released a new single every fortnight at sundown, only enhancing the sense that this was something special and there was a wider Plan for everything they had in store.
The Night Does Not Belong To God
On the surface, The Night Does Not Belong To God lauds of Sleep and His nocturnal domain. Floating in like a prayer, the track likens slumber to paradise. However, despite the initial sense of beauty, it actually hints at Sleep’s darker intentions. As the title suggests, the night is ruled by Sleep, who follows His own rules, unbound by concepts of omnibenevolence.
Rather than solace, Sleep deceives Vessel with a false taste of divinity in order to make Vessel a dependent servant. Sleep’s control mirrors the neurological phenomenon of ‘Sundowning’, the sensations dementia sufferers may experience in the evening – a reflection of Vessel’s heightened confusion.
The Offering
The Offering follows Vessel’s descent into the dark depths of sleep. As Vessel tumbles down into a void of unconsciousness, synths clashing with embittered riffs, he slowly succumbs to Sleep’s control. As the track tussles between piano-led introspection and furious rumbling, the conflicting tone conveys the complexities of holy devotion, yet this quickly transforms into resentful snarls of ‘take a bite’.
Worship once seemed to offer salvation, yet the relationship has devolved into something parasitical. If nothing changes, Vessel’s loyalty to his god could consume him entirely.
Levitate
Sleep isn’t the only relationship Vessel tackles on Sundowning. Basking in a soft haze of piano, Levitate vulnerably hints at a lost love. The track seems to suggest Vessel felt inadequate in the previous relationship; he insists he wont be able to reach his ex-partner ‘where the angels inhabit’, deeming himself unworthy of Heaven while his partner is deserving of a place beyond the pearly gates.
Throughout, Vessel seems to consider his love an anchor, ashamed to be dragging down a lover that is destined to fly. After leaving his partner, he needed to fill the void with a new obsession – enter Sleep
Dark Signs
Amid Vessel’s battle with Sleep, he nestles in more details about his complex past relationship. Pitch black omens and alarm bells are among the many Dark Signs that Vessel ignores while pursuing his ex-partner.
Sadly, the end result was toxic; nowadays, the partner would prefer Vessel to ‘forget that you know me’ entirely. In the aftermath, Vessel barely knows himself, admitting, ‘I miss the man I was… I hate who I have become.’ The track also mentions ‘marks on the dashboard’, alluding to the car crash later depicted on Take Me Back To Eden’s Granite. Foreshadowing? You bet.
Higher
Higher blurs the lines between pain and pleasure, traversing a diverse palette as it explores the ‘blood and fury’ that dominates Vessel’s life. Switching between dreamy synths and light post-metal breakdowns, it’s unclear whether Vessel truly wants to escape the pain, or whether he lusts for it.
‘We just can’t resist the violence’, Vessel implores. While the track could be reflecting on his past relationship, the lyrics also explore Vessel’s obligation to Sleep, referencing how Sleep needs ‘a melody’ to repay ‘the debt’ that Vessel owes.
Take Aim
Take Aim exists in an effervescent haze, gentle and vulnerable in its lovesick musing. It paints Vessel as prey, constantly at the mercy of his lover, a hunter poised and ready to shoot.
For Vessel, love stings ‘like weapons kill’, desperation to please making him ‘hate himself’ – yet, despite all the pain, he longs for the brutality of love. If love is pain, then Sleep’s intoxicatingly cruel autocracy is the height of affection.
Give
Vessel takes centre stage throughout Sundowning, but Give hands the reins over to Sleep. High vocals dance over a backdrop of castanets, a swell of transient instrumentals tempting Vessel to give in to Sleep’s command.
Sleep promises he ‘will be there’ for Vessel, vowing to watch out for him and protect him from enemies, if Vessel simply ‘gives in’ to Sleep’s command and embraces his dark impulses.
Gods
Sundowning tends to exist in softer alt metal soundscapes, but Gods is another beast entirely. It takes place after submitting to Sleep’s seduction on Give, leaving him fearsome enough that even the ‘Gods avert their gaze’ from him.
As soon as it rips open, the track is tyrannical, Vessel transforming from crooning boy next door to a raw, rampaging metal howler, rebuking the god for luring him down a dark path.
Sugar
There’s something bewitching about Sugar. Curious synthetic arpeggios lure you in, a bubble of intoxication as Vessel admits he’s ‘developed a taste’ for the pain he experiences in a toxic partnership.
Whether the ‘chains’ he finds himself addicted to are literal (naughty, naughty) or figurative, Vessel is fully consumed by the control he once resisted. It’s a sharp twist from the venom unleashed on Gods, but perhaps a sign of Vessel accepting the inevitable. It is easier not to fight.
Say That You Will
The vulnerability is back in full force for Say That You Will. Once again Vessel is divulging his unhealthy history with love; as Gods and Dark Signs show, when Vessel surrenders to his subject of obsession, he can transform into someone quite violent.
Reflecting on his ex, we learn that Vessel’s relationship was painted with ‘sorrow’ as well as ‘blood’, the ‘impulse to love and the instinct to kill’ becoming entangled. Rather than trying to change the narrative, Vessel seems to be addicted to the violence of love, doomed to repeat the same tale in his devotion to Sleep.
Drag Me Under
Drag Me Under is a sedative in sonic form, soporific piano sinking you deeper into its clutches. It almost mirrors the album’s opener, emulating a liminal headspace. While Vessel tries to fight back throughout the record, Drag Me Under admits defeat – and Vessel sounds positively angelic as his falsetto cries ring out, not an ounce of anger in his voice.
It’s as if any love is good enough for him, no matter how bloody – he implores Sleep, or a lover, to ‘drag me under again’, no matter how bruised he may end up. The track’s final section also seems to plunge underwater, perhaps preluding This Place Will Become Your Tomb.
Blood Sport
Blood Sport is a fluttering display of regret and suffering in the face of love. The track sees Vessel mourning his past relationship, sombrely wishing he could ‘be forgiven’ and have his partner back. Yet Vessel is aware of his mistakes; he confesses he played a role in destroying his partnership, admitting he ‘made loving [his partner] a blood sport’.
The song seems to reflect how violent delights often have violent ends – and, unfortunately for Vessel, he’s destined to have another violent relationship with Sleep.
Shelter
Recorded for 2020’s stripped-down From The Room Below session and released on the deluxe edition of Sundowning, Shelter is simultaneously bittersweet and tender. It adds another layer to Vessel’s regret over his old partner, reliving memories with fleeting ‘what ifs’.
It’s a sign that Vessel is still lovestruck, longing for a second chance in hopes that ‘this time’ he will do things right.
This Place Will Become Your Tomb (2021)
Sleep Token only seemed to emerge from the pandemic even stronger than before. The enforced break had given a fresh wave of fans chance to discover their music and lore and fan groups had begun to sprout across the internet, everywhere from Reddit to Discord, YouTube and beyond.
Returning to the stage with a performance to a packed tent at the 2021 Download Pilot, Sleep Token had officially bubbled up to become a bona fide cult sensation. Their next album featured heavy nautical themes - and co-ordinates featured on each single sent fans on an easter egg hunt ahead of the album's release. By the time they hit the road the end of 2021, playing sold out rooms each night, it was apparent Sleep Token were now one of metal's strongest new contenders.
Atlantic
While Sundowning drops listeners into the thick of Vessel’s destructive worship, This Place Will Become Your Tomb takes us back to where it all started: underwater. Before becoming a submissive pawn eager to spread Sleep’s message, Vessel finds himself at the water’s edge, prepared to take his own life. The record charts his physical and spiritual descent.
Each track is accompanied by nautical depth in metres and fathoms, marking the downward journey of Vessel’s body as it plummets and his mind surrenders to the solace of sleep. Piano-drenched opener Atlantic roots us in the scene, Vessel begging for his life to be taken by the titular ocean’s ‘blue light’.
In the limbo between life and death, electronics twisting, Vessel encounters another form of sleep – the deity that will be his salvation. The nautical depth associated with Atlantic, 914m, is the depth at which angler fish live - hence the fish on the single cover.
Hypnosis
Hypnosis captures Vessel’s first encounter with Sleep. The track crashes in, oozing a darker metal edge as Vessel is seduced by the deity, experiencing a form of hypnotic amnesia. Tellingly, Hypnos is the Greek god of sleep, who resided beside a river running with water that could erase all of a person’s memories with one sip.
As Vessel begs Sleep to ‘take everything’, he is desperate for rebirth, to forget everything.
Mine
Lines begin to blur on Mine, the first hint of Sleep embodying Vessel and using him as a mouthpiece. Sleep seems to take the reins on this track, talking of how He was ‘paralysed’ for years before finding his perfect Vessel.
Despite opening on a doe-eyed note of affection, the track slowly transforms into grandiose promise of devotion. Yet Sleep’s ulterior motives are clear behind the wall of whirring synths and belted vocals. One notion is consistently repeated: ‘You will be mine.’ Sleep doesn’t consider Vessel to be an equal – he is a vessel to manipulate, consume and control.
Like That
The album’s name comes to light on Like That. While Vessel may have survived his drowning attempt, the ocean was where he first submitted to Sleep – and now he is forever ‘trapped under the surface’, frozen in a world where he is forced to fulfil his deity’s wishes.
The water is a tomb in another sense, representing the death of his autonomy. It’s the first flicker of Vessel’s resentment.
The Love You Want
As Vessel descends into the ocean, we also see him sinking further into his subconscious, unravelling scattered memories before Sleep wipes him of his pain. While The Love You Want emulates a lush, euphoric piano ballad, it highlights a profuse imbalance of power in his past relationship.
Vessel is left thinking he has to change to be loved, bending himself to match the other person’s desires, even if it is detrimental to him. Unfortunately, the same is happening again with Sleep. The track doubles as a promise to his deity, vowing to meet His standards.
Fall For Me
Fall For Me’s polyphonic pitch-shifted vocals see Sleep encouraging Vessel to ‘fall for’ Him, to commit his life to servitude forever. While Sleep hides His vulnerability behind a veil of vocal effects, His more honest confessions take place during the music video, flashing on screen: ‘I am inadequate, I am lost. I am no god…’ He needs Vessel to spread his message, each song a Token to entice worshippers back in.
Alkaline
Due to Vessel’s experience of love, he considers his role in a partnership to be one of utter sacrifice. Alkaline explores the catastrophic impact of that mindset, how toxic affection leaves him ‘altered’ forever.
The chemical imagery throughout paints love as a corrosive force, something that eats away at Vessel. That sentiment of consumption is recurring throughout Sleep Token’s catalogue, from Jericho’s talk of tasting ‘new flesh’ to Take Me Back To Eden’s literally all-consuming Vore.
Distraction
While each track slowly lulls Vessel further into the realm of Sleep, Distraction sounds like defeat. ‘It’s too late for me’, he confesses, echoing vocals sinking into the depths of the track. Its gentle yet powerful flow reflects Vessel’s conflicting emotions in the face of Sleep’s control.
While he welcomes Sleep in, he also knows that doing so will forever change him, leaving him unable to escape or return to his old life.
Descending
Descending seems to be Vessel’s own brand of twisted acceptance, acknowledging that he does have some degree of power in the partnership. Without a vessel, Sleep would be powerless, a forgotten deity without a minion to spread his message.
The dark, club-worthy pulse is delivered with a flare of arrogance, Vessel insisting Sleep will always come ‘crawling back to me’. The track asks Sleep to prove his power, Vessel urging him to ‘come on and save me’.
Telomeres
Telomeres is a rare example of Sleep and Vessel speaking on equal footing. While Vessel has been slowly descending further, succumbing to Sleep’s control, Telomeres captures the exact moment that Sleep decided to intervene in Vessel’s journey to the seabed.
The soothing music reflects Vessel sinking into Sleep’s embrace: ‘You guide me in to safety… this is the start of something.’
High Water
While it’s unclear exactly why Vessel attempts to drown himself, there’s a high chance it is linked to his past lover. As he sinks further into Sleep’s control, High Water allows Vessel one final moment to reflect on the life he is leaving behind.
Floating in the watery depths, Vessel acknowledges the toxicity of his old relationship, processing the scars it left on his soul. ‘You’ll never bear the weight of two’, he croons, before admitting that he shouldn’t continue to ‘pretend [they] will ever be together’. Vessel eventually waves off his past, welcoming in his new era of holy allegiance to Sleep.
Missing Limbs
Missing Limbs has the deepest coordinates of the lot – Challenger Deep, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. For all its twanging, acoustic charms, the song is dark. Vessel has hit rock bottom, relinquishing full control to Sleep, his mind is becoming a blank canvas.
Vessel is essentially empty, a carcass ready for Sleep to embody – and He does, the track closing on a hellish whir, the scraping gulf of an electronic sea consuming him.
Take Me Back To Eden (2023)
How big can a cult get before it becomes a religion? That's the question facing Sleep Token after the release of Take Me Back To Eden, their third album proving a breakout smash internationally as they played sold out shows both sides of the Atlantic, including a Wembley Arena performance that sold out in less than 10 minutes.
TikTok interest around singles like Chokehold and The Summoning certainly helped spread Sleep Token's message, but the fact that Take Me Back To Eden felt like a full circle moment for the band - both musically and thematically, ensured it was one of the biggest metal releases of 2023, as well as being voted the best metal album of 2023 by Metal Hammer readers.
Chokehold
Reinforcing the imagery threaded through its two predecessors, the opening track on Sleep Token’s third album once again centres around a relationship that seemed perfect but has gone bad (something suggested up by its aggressive, violent title).
The twist here is that this could all be Sleep showing Vessel that his relationship will go wrong, rather than narrating something that has already happened. Sleep is offering salvation from a cycle of destruction that He has seen before, but also suggests that what Vessel is (or will) experience is pre-destined, right from Chokehold’s opening line: ‘When we were made, it was no accident.’
It also introduces lyrical motifs that are then picked up again on future songs. On the Sleep Token Discord, the user Valentine goes one step further, stating, “Chokehold is a great intake of air after holding your breath to dive to the bottom of This Place Will Become Your Tomb. […] Chokehold is the state of being between living with [another person] and living without them. They feel they can do neither at this point, but must choose one."
The Summoning
Much of Take Me Back To Eden is based around the idea of cycles, reinforced through repeated imagery. Colour-coded lyrics like ‘I look for scarlet and you look for ultraviolet’ echo ‘I’ve got a blood trail, red in the blue’ from Sundowning track Higher (and come up again on this album’s Aqua Regia).
It reinforces the idea of repetitive patterns, potentially of abusive or collapsing relationships. Some Reddit users even posit it isn’t just about meeting someone new, but a prelude to the tragedy explored previously (and in future) in Sleep Token lore.
Granite
Sleep Token don’t do ‘stories’ in the traditional sense, but Granite seems to be a narrative about a car crash, possibly caused as a result of addiction/selfdestructive tendencies. It also introduces the idea of alchemical reactions, contrasting sulphur with granite, with some fans pointing out sulphur dioxide causes granite to degrade.
Aqua Regia
Another reference to a chemical reaction: Aqua Regia is a scientific compound used to refine gold. There’s a lot of gold imagery in the song’s lyrics, as well as a suggestion of the of drug abuse hinted at in Granite (and referring to blood trails from The Summoning).
It also goes back to the idea of the romance Vessel is singing about being destructive and toxic, but equally addictive. This is Vessel at their most ‘human’, but also at their most damaged and broken.
Vore
Vorarephilia is the erotic desire to be consumed by someone or something else. There’s an obvious sexual connotation to the lyrical imagery, but it also ties in to themes of addiction and being subsumed, perhaps by Sleep or by an external relationship.
There’s also an element of desperation that is common throughout Sleep Token’s songs, wanting to escape anything that could separate the pair. We also get repeated holy water references from Granite, reinforcing the idea of this being part of the cycle.
Ascensionism
Read as a conversation between Vessel and Sleep, there’s a level of ambiguity as to whether Ascensionism is about the idea of past ties and past lives in a metaphorical sense, or more literally the idea of different Vessels repeating destructive patterns in the past.
The song revisits imagery from Vore, The Summoning and Aqua Regia, playing into the idea of cycles and an inevitable sense of destruction and deception as part of the relationship.
Are You Really Okay?
As part of the destructive behaviour and relationship Vessel has been exploring, we start to get a sense of despair as he is unable to save someone he loves from their own destruction. The song covers a sense of distance that is growing in the relationship and the self-destructive imagery is seen as a callback to some of the lyrical content on Sundowning.
One Reddit user even suggests that the single art seemingly portrays a figure with an infant, suggesting the idea of a miscarriage as part of the album’s overall tragic arc, leading to more destructive behaviour.
The Apparition
With so many callbacks to previous albums and songs throughout Take Me Back To Eden, it’s impossible to tell if the record is supposed to be read as a linear narrative. The Apparition seems to be one of the more direct songs on the album, dealing with conversations between Vessel and the entity, in particular honing in on the sense that Vessel is doomed to despair each time he wakes up, left to make sense of past memories and experiences.
DYWTYLM
Sleep Token have plenty of songs about heartbreak, addiction and destructive behaviour, so it’s unsurprising DYWTYLM would be seized upon by the fanbase. Although it continues those dark themes, this track also starts to move away from the idea of repetition; it’s more about acceptance and self-love, fans drawing parallels with the oceanic imagery of the previous record used at the very start to a sense of moving on that becomes crucial to the closing tracks of the album.
Rain
After finding self-love, Vessel is looking to move on and end the destructive cycle. Fans have interpreted the line ‘I know what I am; the mouth of the wolf, the eyes of the lamb’ as Vessel recognising that he is a prophet for a false god, linking it to the biblical passage Matthew 7:15 (‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves’).
Take Me Back To Eden
The album’s title track ties its overarching narrative together, with plenty of callbacks to what has come before – both on this release and their previous ones. It also reinforces the idea of a cycle being inevitable: the line ‘when we were made, it was no accident’, originally from Chokehold, is repeated, as if Vessel is trying to escape the cycle, that is in itself a part of the same cycle.
Euclid
‘I must be new’, Vessel sings on Euclid, and fans have seized upon this as an admission that the band will be moving on completely with their next release – it feels like the closing chapter of the first phase of Sleep Token’s story.
Ultimately, Take Me Back To Eden ends by going right back to the very beginning: the song’s final verse is directly lifted from Sundowning opener The Night Does Not Belong To God, suggesting that the cycle is looped and we’re right back to the beginning of the band’s lyrical narrative as laid out on their first album.
