Even in Arcadia (2025) - A Review
As I'm taking a Sunday listen to the new Sleep Token record (Even in Arcadia, 2025), I realize that the title track "Even in Arcadia" follows the lineage of "Atlantic", which is honestly still a favorite song of mine of Sleep Token. I have to say as well I'm very happy of the lengths of tracks on this record, it makes it very fun to listen to.
There is no real equivalent to "Vore" (Take Me Back to Eden, 2023) or "Gods" (Sundowning, 2019). that's fine; but I think "Emergence" is the closest to a new "The Offering" (Sundowning, 2019) or "The Summoning" (Take Me Back to Eden, 2023) or "Hypnosis" (This Place Will Become Your Tomb, 2021) that [Even in Arcadia] has to offer. I initially thought that "Infinite Baths" occupied that same niche of metal as those previous three songs, but I think "Emergence" comes closer thematically, followed by "Infinite Baths" later half (~5:18 onward).
On the topic of "Infinite Baths", I think that the metal sound of the last third of the song is indicative of an acknowledgement of that early fanbase of Sleep Token as a band. some of us stuck around for the lyrics but were drawn in by the sound of songs like "Gods", "The Offering", and "Hypnosis" -- well before "The Summoning" took off after its single release in January 2019. "The Summoning" has things for the long-time listeners, and of course there's always the live variant of the drum solo from II during shows and even in the Drumeo performance video from 2024.
As wikipedia notes on the page for "Take Me Back to Eden", referencing Loudwire's article -- the band went from ~300,000 listeners on Spotify to approx. 1.58 Million in the span of just January 2023. that's a huge swath of popularity for a band that was popular relative to how Unprocessed or Northlane are today (after a quick check of listener counts on Spotify as of writing this)
Sleep Token has been hugely popular since Take Me Back to Eden, and that's a good thing for the band overall; more streams means more funds from record labels to work on evolving the sound and making new music with it. I'm genuinely interested in where Vessel and II take the band moving forwards.
I think, now that we're four albums into Sleep Token's discography since 2019 (a typical every-two-years cadence since 2019), Sleep Token's subtle evolution is perfectly in-line with what their sound has been since their 2016 EP "One", and even the single "Jaws" in 2018 and especially given the Sundowning LP in 2019.
Bands don't stay the same in their sound, they have to change by virtue of being made up by humans who change and are changed. But if I had to really say what my favorite album from Sleep Token is at the moment, it'd probably be "This Place Will Become Your Tomb" from 2021.
Ultimately I think Sleep Token will remain popular if not continuing to grow in popularity because of their diverse sound on each record. the style of lyricism and genre differences even inside a single album or track makes it hard for me to not find at least a few tracks per record that i really like.
Namely, with Even in Arcadia; I'm a huge fan of the title track "Even in Arcadia", as well as "Emergence", "Dangerous" and "Infinite Baths".
It's a good album, with a lot of range, even if I personally would prefer more metal from Sleep Token.