A beautiful breakdown set to music, Even In Arcadia sees Sleep Token shed skin, faith, and facade, often all at once

Words by Felix Bartlett | May 09, 2025

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If Take Me Back To Eden was the cathedral, Even In Arcadia is the ruins left behind. Charred, cracked, and crawling with strange new life. Sleep Token’s fourth album doesn’t just step away from their mythic trilogy, it burns the scripture, crushes the altar, and paints the walls with the blood of vulnerability. It’s messy. It’s pretentious. It’s brilliant.

The first few seconds of ‘Look To Windward’ say everything you need to know. Alarm synths scream like a broken siren as Vessel sings with a restraint that’s more terrifying than his screams. Then, as expected, total implosion. Off-kilter strings, whispered threats, shrieked catharsis. It’s Sleep Token weaponising discomfort, and it’s a mission statement. Don’t come looking for The Offering Part II. This is a requiem for the mask.

There are moments of grandeur. ‘Emergence’ and ‘Damocles’ are certified arena-bait, thunderous and hook-laden, but Even In Arcadia thrives when it’s at its weirdest. ‘Past Self’ sounds like Daft Punk locked in a sensory deprivation tank; ‘Dangerous’ slinks in with trap beats and falsetto swagger that would make The Weeknd flinch. Provider might be the biggest sonic left-hook of their career. Half midnight soul, half R&B exorcism, all delivered with Vessel’s trademark anguish.

Lyrically, this is a knife fight with identity. ‘Caramel’ drips disdain through its pop sheen (“Terrified to answer my own front door”), while ‘Gethsemane’ morphs into a six-minute shapeshifter that might be the band’s magnum opus. Sufjan Stevens’ melancholy gives way to Mars Volta-style freak-outs, before it disintegrates into Death Grips-laced chaos. And yet, it never feels contrived. Vessel isn’t experimenting, he’s unravelling.

But not everything lands. ‘Past Self’, for all its gloss, skims the surface emotionally. And the title track, while sonically massive, feels more like epilogue than climax. Yet these flaws feel almost intentional, like smudges on a canvas meant to remind you this masterpiece was painted in real blood.

Then there’s ‘Infinite Baths’. Pink Floydian keys. The ever so popular Deftones-style eruptions. A finale so heavy it feels like the sky’s falling in, leaving the feeling of not a closer but rather a collapse upon your ears, leaving nothing but silence and scars.

Even In Arcadia isn’t trying to win anyone over. It’s trying to survive. It’s trying to bleed. And in doing so, it cements Sleep Token as the most fearless band in modern rock and metal. Not because they embrace genre chaos, but because they turn it into communion.

Verdict: 💀💀💀💀💀

For fans of: Polyphia, Dayseeker, Chase Atlantic

Even In Arcadia is out May 9 via RCA Records