Before 2023, plenty of people were aware of Sleep Token’s unique, genre-busting blend of styles. The band’s previous singles and two full-lengths established a foundation for the mysterious, masked band to build off of. Then 2023 happened, and all hell broke loose. It’s not a mirage, either, as far as their success is concerned. Releasing half the new album Take Me Back To Eden as pre-release singles paid off for Sleep Token, as “The Summoning” quickly garnered viral attention all across the Internet. “The Summoning” is actually their most-streamed song on Spotify by far, outdoing 2021’s “Alkaline” by a 2:1 ratio. Their Spotify monthly listeners have increased almost 8x from the beginning of 2023 to the time of this article, and they’ve been forced to upgrade to bigger venues quite frequently.
What’s more, is that the band isn’t exactly easy listening all the time. At times, Sleep Token’s music borders on the kind of progressive metalcore and even post-black metal that you’d find on really, really heavy bills at shows. The menacing breakdown on 2019’s “Higher” is a good example of this, as is new song “Vore” – the latter is oddly reminiscent of both Deftones and Deafheaven, but yet still has enough melody to appeal to fans who might find their less-heavy music to be more palatable.
The point is, Sleep Token have been building towards this moment since their earliest material, with “Thread The Needle” and “Nazareth” hinting at what was to come. In fact, 1/3 of Take Me Back To Eden has now made it onto the USA’s Spotify Viral 50 chart, which features the hottest trending songs in the country. Already on pace to destroy their previous first-week sales in the UK, it’s also going to have a huge week in the USA as well. They’re already garnering high billing at festivals like Blue Ridge Rock Festival 2023, and it’ll be interesting to see just how big they can get. You might even put them on par with the leap in fanbase that a band like Bad Omens experienced from album #2 to #3, to be honest.
