9/1/2023 0 Comments Mosh pits at sleep concert![]() ![]() New music and the events of the tour saw the band trend on Twitter, while their Spotify stats skyrocketed from under 250,000 monthly listeners to its current total of 1.6 million. Two more tracks, the R&B-influenced ‘Granite’ and ‘Aqua Regia’, dropped on consecutive days two weeks later after they were debuted on the first night of Sleep Token’s UK tour in Birmingham. It started on January 5 when the band, with no prior announcement, released a new song, the thrilling and riff-grinding ‘Chokehold’, before following it up the next day with ‘The Summoning’. ![]() Sleep Token have kicked things up a notch this month. Having previously supported Architects, the band have since become major headliners in their own right – not to mention the fact that they’re consistently selling out every show they play. It’s an approach that quickly helped them build a cult following, though they’ve since outgrown their status as underground heroes. Despite some comparisons to the Swedish band Ghost (though the two bands sound nothing alike), Sleep Token’s theatricality feels subtler, darker and richer with detail. Of course, countless rock bands have previously flirted with theatrics, aliases and anonymity. Each of Sleep Token’s songs are said to be dedicated to this deity, while their sound is just as intriguing: splicing tuned-down tech-metal with the lighter elements of pop and R&B to create a soundscape that’s not only heavy, but curiously accessible. ![]() The story goes that Vessel was visited in a dream by an ancient deity known as Sleep, who promised him “glory and magnificence” if Vessel were to follow him. Welcome to the world of Sleep Token – the not-so-hidden gem of the UK metal underground.įormed in 2016, the band’s origin story is steeped in lore. The band themselves prefer to call it a “Ritual”: their audiences are “congregations” rather than crowds, while their social media posts regularly end with the word “worship”. The mosh pits that erupt in the centre of the venue aside, this is not your standard metal gig. He’s just as engrossed in his performance as his audience is, though: while Vessel doesn’t utter a word between songs, towards the end of the show he does seem to start sobbing. Vessel’s voice is rich and sonorous with a soulful tone, while the whoops which greet his very capable falsetto briefly threaten to bring down his veil of humility. It’s in stark contrast to the three cloaked backing singers to the left of the stage, who remain eerily still throughout the 90-minute set. The band’s frontman, known only as Vessel, is constantly on the prowl: he alternates between skittering about the stage and looking like he’s wading through treacle. The stage is decorated simply but elegantly, with ferns and back lights that alternatively glow gently and glare harshly as the music swells in intensity. Several thousand black-clad fans are gawking in awe at a group of cloaked, masked and barefoot musicians whose bodies are smeared in black paint. Inside the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, something enchanting is happening. ![]()
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