Album review: Sleep Token – Even In Arcadia

What do you do after you’ve written yourself a once-in-a-generation success story? This is the question that Sleep Token have been facing, approaching their first album after the conclusion of their trilogy with a greater weight on their shoulders and minds than ever. Having conquered Wembley, The O2 (twice) and soon, Download, all with apparent ease, Vessel could well weep at an apparent lack of worlds left to conquer. Their answer on Even In Arcadia is to double down, to not just expand their sound but intensify it, and to elevate it into something six-dimensional.

It's best to break the seal on the record sitting alone, with no distractions, maybe with the lights off and some tissues nearby. After all, there’s a lot to absorb. Experiencing eight-minute opener Look To Windward is like standing before a vibrant painting not knowing what details to take in first, from the off-kilter chiptune-like chords the frontman sings over, the splashes of orchestral grandeur or the sudden gnash of abyssal riffs. Emergence, meanwhile, offers a smoother synthesis of disparate genres, as does the sensuous Dangerous, almost a slightly more evolved version of their sound from 2021’s This Place Will Become Your Tomb.

• Get Sleep Token’s new album with exclusive house-specific artwork

They’re not just rinsing and repeating, however – they’ve evolved too much as a band to do that. While not as wild a leap as 2023’s groundbreaking Take Me Back To Eden, there’s all sorts of new touches here. On Caramel, Vessel briefly emerges from behind the curtain to viscerally spell out the effect over-intrusive fans have had on him, leaving him ‘Terrified to answer my own front door,’ and feeling like, ‘This stage is a prison.’ Gethsemane, meanwhile, brings their most radically new sounds – Vessel bends his voice into new timbres, and there’s even some funky riff work unlike anything they’ve ever attempted before, almost akin to The Home Team (weird, yet it works).

If there’s anywhere they falter, it’s on their simpler songs. It’s not to say they can’t succeed without being weird or maximalist and they have a dossier of past successes to prove that (see: Aqua Regia, Missing Limbs, Fall For Me), but when they strip things back here, like Past Self’s airy synth-and-drum-machine pop it gets a little wobbly.

Fortunately, Even in Arcadia’s minor quibbles are easily dwarfed by the height of its peaks. It isn’t quite an album of all-timers, but it’s more than enough to bring in wave after wave of gleaming gold spoils all over again. Crucially, of course, it’s something only they could have made – and that is always a strength.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Polyphia, Dayseeker, Chase Atlantic

Even In Arcadia is released on May 9 via RCA. Sleep Token headline Download Festival in June – get your tickets now.

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• Inside the magic and the mastery of Sleep Token’s early days
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• 12 essential Sleep Token songs you need to know