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sleepanonymous · 5 months

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im trying to get into sleeptoken - one of my friends is dragging me into it and i love it - can you just give me like a huge timeline and lore overlook? im looking around your feed, and im SO confused but also SO intrigued !! would love to hear from you :)

Hi! New fans always make me so happy! I’m glad you’ve been shown Sleep Token and you like what you’ve heard so far! I always recommend this video and this article regarding Sleep Token lore, but… yeah, I will take a stab at a complete timeline for you. I’ll be honest: I never was very into the lore of “Sleep” as much as I was curious about the band itself (which is typically why I recommend the two above sources for lore purposes). I know that much of the lore is from fans’ deep analyses of Sleep Token’s lyrics and not anything official from the band or Vessel. Almost everything is fan-made, so there are a lot of differing opinions—anything official or stated by Vessel and the band in interviews I included. If anyone is interested in my take on the lore, I might make a separate post about that.

This ended up becoming a massive post. Take what you think is massive and then double or even triple it. Fun fact: I aggressively fact-checked this and actually learned some new things about the band myself. I have marked any unverifiable statements and opinions in this post with an asterisk. Due to the band’s secrecy, the sentences with an asterisk are either heavily opinion-based or my best guess at what might have happened during a specific time period. Take them with a grain of salt.

Anyway! I have a problem; below the cut, I am making it everybody else’s problem.

In September of 2016, a video was posted to YouTube. The video was a black-and-white depiction, through short clips and flashing images, of what appeared to be a lone masked man, Vessel, performing a ritual by candlelight. The music over the video, a hauntingly beautiful mixture of indie pop and prog metal, was met with heavy praise from commenters. The description had three links to a new band’s social media and a Bandcamp account. Below the links was the following description:

Sleep Token are a masked, anonymous collective of musicians; united by their worship of an ancient deity crudely dubbed “Sleep”, since no modern tongue can properly express it’s name. This being once held great power, bestowing ancient civilisations with the gift of dreams, and the curse of nightmares. Even today, though faded from prominence, ‘Sleep’ yet lurks in the subconscious minds of man, woman, and child alike. Fragments of beauty, horror, anguish, pain, happiness, joy, anger, disgust, and fear coalesce to create expansive, emotionally textured music that simultaneously embodies the darkest, and the brightest abstract thoughts. He has seen them. He has felt them. He is everywhere. Sleep Token, led by the perpetually tormented, supremely talented Vessel, creates music that brings to the fore our most submerged thoughts and feelings, coaxing them from the desolate, terrifying caves of our subconscious mind.

The band officially formed in April 2016 (The YouTube channel, for reference, was created on April 14, 2016), but things had already been in the works for nearly a year before the uploaded Thread the Needle music video. In July 2015, Vessel came into contact with a talent scout/independent project manager by the name of Tom (I won’t provide his full name since Googling him brings up biased, embellished, and most likely false information about the band and its members).* In 2015, Vessel was already a skilled, trained, and experienced musician with the ability to play several instruments, including the piano, guitar, and bass, and the knowledge to compose and produce his own music. That being the case, Tom introduced Vessel to a drummer, dubbed II, as well as a skilled producer by the name of George Lever.*

On November 10, 2016, a second video was posted to Sleep Token’s YouTube channel, a music video for the masked collective’s second release, Fields of Elation. Much like Thread the Needle, Fields of Elation was met with enthusiasm and praise by Sleep Token’s growing fanbase.

Finally, on December 2, 2016, Sleep Token independently released their first EP, aptly titled “One”, on their Bandcamp page. The EP included Thread the Needle, Fields of Elation, and a new song: When the Bough Breaks. Accompanying the three songs, the band also included piano renditions of all three songs, performed solely by Vessel.

On the last day of February 2017, Sleep Token posted another video to their YouTube channel, a sombre piano cover of Outkast’s Hey Ya. Following the release of “One” and the cover of Hey Ya, Tom, now acting as Sleep Token’s manager, got the band signed to a label called Basick Records.* By May 2017, the band had another three-song EP, dubbed “Two”, already written and set to release that summer. This was announced via the release of Sleep Token’s third music video, Calcutta. By this time, Sleep Token’s manager had gotten a stand-in bassist and guitarist, dubbed III and IV, respectively, for the band’s first live Ritual. This was mentioned at the end of Sleep Token’s first-ever published interview with Louder. You can read it and the accompanying short article here.

On June 17, 2017, less than one month after the release of the Calcutta music video, Sleep Token took the stage for their first Ritual at The Black Heart in London. The band played seven songs live, including the three songs from “One”, Calcutta, two unreleased songs, Nazareth and Jericho from their upcoming EP “Two”, and their cover of Hey Ya. Very little is known about this Ritual. Most online sources seem to not know of its existence at all. The only concrete facts known about Ritual I are that doors opened at 7 pm, it was 18+, and tickets were £8.00 each. It is unclear how many people attended the Ritual; no footage or pictures have surfaced from that evening.

Sleep Token’s second and third rituals were performed in London in October and November 2017. The band opened for Motorpsycho and Perturbator, respectively. Because they were openers, any visual or audio documentation is nearly non-existent, but the band did appear in a few online articles reviewing the concerts.

In this article, author Roger Trenwith wrote the following about Sleep Token’s Ritual II:

“The support act Sleep Token was an odd mix of metal and pure pop, played by a band in horror masks and cloaks. Musically they were somewhat formulaic, in the tried and trusted quiet-loud-quiet-F’KIN LOUD nature of most of the songs, and accompanying theatrics by rote. When they diverted from the formula, they showed some promise, mostly down to the singer, whose extraordinary range made them just about bearable.”

Ritual III was met with similar criticism. This article, written by a much more helpful and open-minded Chris Keith-Wright, stated the following*:

“Remarkably, by the time Sleep Token take to the stage to start the evening off, there’s a very respectable amount of people front and centre to check them out. Perhaps this is due to the up-swell of media attention on the band since their signing to Basick Records and the release of their second EP, cleverly titled Two, that landed this summer. [...] The conceit surrounding the group is that the band are representatives of an ancient deity known only as “Sleep”, and that their frontman is an appointed-one dubbed ‘Vessel’. Whatever one makes of that, the fact is that Sleep Token’s Vessel has a most extraordinary set of pipes. [...] With a lighting show in time with their music and Vessel’s strong, soulful melodic voice featuring some impressive falsetto, they quickly engaged the audience. With the amount of vocal harmonies and extra musical depth that came over the sound system, I have to admit that it felt throughout their set that they were missing a band member, someone who could control and wield the keyboards, samples and electronics in a live setting. Donned with the obligatory cloaks the band produce a strong performance with their points of difference, clearly thought out prior to their live debut only a few weeks before. Their odd masks obscure their faces and during the quiet, vocal-led passages the guitar and bass players stood stock still. It’s simple, understated, but effective, producing quite the spectacle. Sleep Token’s transition between soulful, repetitive vocal melodies and brutal Meshuggah-esque riffery, and after a few songs this formula felt well-trodden. This is unfortunate as on record these transitions between the two disparate styles are far better executed – live there was far too much juxtaposition. Despite this, I and the majority of the growing crowd were transfixed by their performance.”

In March 2018, Sleep Token opened for two Holding Absence/Loathe shows, two bands with which Vessel would later collaborate. By April 2018, Sleep Token had parted ways with their manager and the Basick Records label.* It is unclear if both of these departures were related or amicable. As a once again independent artist, Sleep Token released the single, Jaws, on June 3, 2018, using footage filmed for their Nazareth music video that their previous label did not utilise. Through the spring and summer of 2018, Sleep Token performed their rituals at UK music festivals, further growing their fanbase.

In August of 2018, Vessel gave his second interview to Kerrang! UK. Interestingly, the article refers to the frontman not as Vessel but simply as Him. The main focus is on Sleep Token’s music and the single Jaws, released two months prior. A transcribed version of the article can be found in my Google Drive

Following these successful rituals and the Jaws interview, the band released another single, The Way That You Were, on October 8, 2018, along with its music video on YouTube.

This release preceded the last Ritual the band would perform that year. On October 11, 2018, Ritual XI was held at St Pancras Old Church in London, dubbed the band’s Inaugural Headline Ritual. It’s rumoured that all 120 tickets to the Ritual sold out in seconds. The band performed ten songs in total, including the live debut of the song Blood Sport. It is also worth noting that this is the first ritual Sleep Token performed with an opener being a band called Exploring Birdsong, which would become a staple opener for later ritual dates. Several members of Exploring Birdsong would also later become touring members of Sleep Token as the Choir.

At an unknown date in 2019, Sleep Token signed with a new label, Spinefarm Records. Together, the band and label began releasing music from Sleep Token’s first full-length album, “Sundowning.” Starting with The Night Does Not Belong to God on June 20, 2019, the band methodically released a new song bi-weekly at sundown BST until the record’s full release on November 21, 2019.

Interestingly, Sleep Token’s biography on Spinefarm differs from what the band had previously had in the description of their first two music videos. It is as follows:

Beneath the Sleep Token banner, lies the unique, broad-based vision of one individual – anonymous, silent, masked, armed with a staggering vocal range, a deft touch on the keyboards, plus a live approach that is never less than fully engaged.

While all factual statements to Vessel’s capabilities and talents, it appears that the band and their new label had retconned the lore surrounding them, granting the creation credits solely to Vessel himself. This is further evident by the Kerrang! Interview Vessel had previously given, which was removed from the internet, as well as the band’s Facebook page getting scrubbed of all posts prior to April 2019. Replacing them is a video of Vessel sitting at a piano and removing his mask, reminiscent of what would later happen at The Room Below Ritual in 2022.

Sleep Token would return to the stage on July 2, 2019. During this Ritual, Sleep Token opened for Amaranth and headliner Babymetal. This Ritual is notable because two key stage members, the guitarist IV and the Keyboardist, were replaced. The new guitarist took on the same moniker of IV, and the Keyboardist was replaced with three women from Exploring Birdsong, forming the Choir (or, as fans have dubbed them, the Vesselettes). The Choir was not yet a ritual staple, and there were several festivals and rituals where they did not accompany the band on stage, such as Sleep Token’s first US tour from November 7 to December 15, supporting Issues on the Beautiful Oblivion tour. The replacement for IV, however, did accompany Sleep Token on this tour.

With the release of “Sundowning,” Sleep Token once again gave an interview to Kerrang! UK to accompany an article reviewing the album. The article can be found online here, but no longer has the accompanying interview section. A photo of the original magazine review + interview, and a transcription can be found in my Google Drive.

Returning to the UK, Sleep Token performed several more rituals in late January 2020. Due to COVID-19 and subsequent lockdowns, they did not conduct another ritual that year. Nearly one year after the release of Sundowning, the band released a deluxe version, including new covers of Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody and Billie Eilish’s When The Party’s Over, a piano version of Blood Sport, and a new original song titled Shelter.

Sleep Token would not perform another Ritual until the Download Pilot festival on June 18, 2021. Despite being Sleep Token’s first Ritual in over a year, this festival also had IV replaced again by another guitarist donning the same moniker. The Choir also returned to the stage with Sleep Token, completing the lineup that we know today. This festival was the same day that Sleep Token dropped their new single from their upcoming second album, Alkaline, along with a music video on YouTube.

Another reason the Download Pilot ritual was significant is that it was the first time a spoken message had been given to the attendees of a Sleep Token ritual, not by a band member but by a prerecorded, AI-generated voice. The following text was the message:

Let’s not deceive ourselves There is a reason we are here It follows us wherever we go We were in love We are in love It is what floats above us as we try to sleep It is what stands beside us as we gaze into nothingness It is drowning us It is eating us alive A million outstretched arms in complete darkness They will reach forever Remind me We’re both dying to find out what happens when we die We’re both scared of being We’re both stolen pieces of each other We’re both exploring our own frontiers of grief We’re both just strangers We’re both just particles We’re both so lost in what it means to be lost We’re both a house that remained unoccupied for too long Let’s not deceive ourselves.

Sleep Token released another music video for their upcoming album’s second single, The Love You Want, on August 6, 2021. Sleep Token played the same spoken message before taking the stage at the 2021 Heavy Music Awards on September 2, 2021. On stage, they performed several staple songs from “Sundowning” along with new singles Alkaline and The Love You Want, with the latter including the same dancers from the music video.

Two weeks later, on September 17, 2021, Sleep Token released their third and final single from their upcoming album, Fall For Me. Unlike the previous music videos for the band, this video focused on a single man, whom keen-eyed fans had identified as Vessel, though he was maskless, paintless, and in street clothing. Over the video, words will flash across the screen. When strung together, they give the following message:

The truth is I am due a harsh lesson In truth itself and how bitter it can be Will you teach me? The truth is, I am ugly, I am inadequate, I am lost, I am no god The truth is, I want to want to live And so do you I just can’t do this any longer I am afraid Are you afraid? I want to understand what it is to let go So for now let me serve as a living drama of your pain If we are to be submerged let us be submerged Together

One week later, On September 24, 2021, Sleep Token released their second full-length album with Spinefarm Records, titled “This Place Will Become Your Tomb.” This album was the first to find a spot on the UK music charts, reaching #39 for UK Albums.

That following November, Sleep Token had their first multi-date headline tour supporting their second album. They toured with another of their staple openers, AA Williams, and played eight rituals in total throughout the UK.

On November 26, 2021, an instrumental version of “This Place Will Become Your Tomb” was released, stripping all songs of Vessel’s vocals, except for Missing Limbs, which was not included. Surprising fans, just over one month later, on January 2, 2022, Sleep Token released a cover of Loathe’s song Is It Really You? The cover is listed as a collaboration between both bands but is simply (though still beautiful and enrapturing) Vessel singing alongside a piano rendition of the original song.* A year later later, the vocalist of Holding Absence, Lucas Woodland, would also announce that his band had collaborated with Vessel on an unreleased song on his Twitter.

This unofficial announcement accompanies another that was made in March of 2019 by Lucas, who stated in an interview that Vessel assisted Holding Absence with playing the piano in the song Purge.

On March 30, 2022, Sleep Token released an instrumental version of their first album, Sundowning. Nearly a month later, on April 29, 2022, Sleep Token, or rather Vessel and the Choir, performed an intimate ritual at the Lafayette in London. The Ritual was dubbed “From the Room Below.” This performance is one of the most significant rituals for two reasons. Vessel sang and played guitar for the first several songs, then removed his mask and played the rest of the set while sitting at a piano with his back to the audience. The second reason is that Vessel, once again, played an AI-generated message to the crowd of 600 people while he openly sobbed on the piano bench. His full message to the audience was this:

We are here to silently connect. To project ourselves onto one another. We are here to remember. We are here to forget. We are here to worship. Some time ago, I was given a message. It was a message that originated from one of you. Someone possessed by a strong desire to tell me something. The message read very simply: You saved me. I have thought about this message a great deal since. It left me with a feeling that I have somehow been mistaken for someone else. I did not save anyone. I do not believe I have the capacity to save anyone. All I have ever given anyone was a small window into the emotional waiting room of my mind. I do so whilst doing everything in my power to minimise my own vulnerability. In this way, I am selfish. I chose not to give what others can, and yet I am the benefactor of this thankful praise. I experience a great deal of pain in my life. However, I do not believe I have suffered as you have suffered. Perhaps that is another reason why we are here. At the very least, we have all suffered. I would also like to take this chance to tell you something. To love oneself is not the easy task we are sometimes told it is. We are all limited by something. We are all guilty of something. My own path towards a place of greater self-acceptance is paved with the art that I create. It is a path that I continue to stumble down at the expense of everything else. I am nothing without this music. I am nothing without this mask. So, in this sense, the message I received was true, but only in an inverse sense. The truth is I did not save anybody. You saved me.

After this first Ritual of 2022, Sleep Token had a busy year of touring, performing rituals in the UK, for the first time in Australia, and returning to the United States. In all, fifty-four rituals were performed, making 2022 Sleep Token’s busiest year— until 2023.

On January 4, 2023, Sleep Token dropped a new YouTube video, a visualiser for a new song, Chokehold, from their upcoming third studio album, “Take Me Back to Eden.” One day later, on January 5, Sleep Token posted another visualiser to YouTube, this time for the song The Summoning. This song is specifically responsible for Sleep Token’s sudden skyrocketing into the spotlight of modern music. To date (late November 2023), the visualiser has over 13 million views on YouTube, and the song has over 80 million streams on Spotify.

Around the same time as Chokehold and The Summoning were released, Sleep Token also added new merchandise to their store. Among the new “Take Me Back to Eden” themed shirts and pullovers was a crewneck sweater with a poem written in runes. The poem read as follows:

I am hunting something, and in turn, that same thing is hunting me. The beholder, the void beyond. I am the line between. I am the teeth of God.

Sleep Token released six singles for their third studio album: Granite on January 19, Aqua Regia on January 20, Vore on February 15, and DYWTYLM on April 19. “Take Me Back to Eden” was released on May 19. Dubbed the end to a trilogy, Sleep Token’s third album reached a peak point of #3 for UK Albums and #16 for the US Billboard 200. With this success, Sleep Token and Vessel were featured on several magazine covers, but the accompanying articles lacked an interview by the band or their servants.

Sleep Token spent the time between single releases touring Europe, the UK, and Australia. In September of 2023, the band returned to the US, for the first time with the Choir, for a headline tour, using AA Williams as their opener. At every date on this headline tour, a series of interludes were played between songs. All four interludes are below.

Interlude I Mask: They think you fake it Vessel: What do you mean? Mask: When you cry on stage, they don’t think it’s real. Vessel: That’s a reasonable assumption. Mask: Do you fake it? Vessel: No, I don’t. But it is something I do consistently, so if I was a member of the audience, I would probably assume that it wasn’t real. Mask: Do you ever see them crying? Vessel: No, I can only ever see them smiling. That’s good. I want them to smile. Mask: Do you think they want you to cry? Do you think they like it? Vessel: Not as such; I think they just want to know that I am feeling something, feeling what they are feeling, perhaps. Mask: Do you think that this amount of crying is healthy for you? Vessel: I don’t know. But at least I feel something; if I don’t feel anything, then why would I even do this?

Interlude II Mask: Why am I here? What is my purpose in all of this? Vessel: Your purpose is twofold. You protect me from them, and you also protect them from me. Mask: How is it that I serve to protect anyone from anything? That makes no sense. Vessel: In order for all of this to work, there has to be a certain boundary in place. They need to be able to project themselves onto this without anyone else’s identity getting in the way. In turn, I need to be able to show my true self to them in a way that does not compromise their ability to connect. Mask: So that’s what I am? A boundary? Vessel: Yes. Mask: I don’t believe you. I believe there is more to it than that. I believe you are afraid of something. Vessel: We are all afraid of something, are we not? Mask: What is it you are so afraid they will see? Vessel: That I am exactly like everyone else.

Interlude III Mask: Are you afraid of me? Vessel: Sometimes. Mask: Why? Vessel: I think I am afraid of becoming you. Mask: What does that even mean? Vessel: My life is becoming gradually consumed by you. Before long, all that I am will be contained within you. Then, one day, when I no longer wish to wear you, there will be nothing else left. Mask: It seems you have forgotten who you are. Before you had me, you were nothing. All of this artifice, all this pathetic conjecture about your identity, it is nothing but a manifestation of how short-sighted and solipsistic you have become. I lifted you from misery and obscurity. You would be better to become me. You are nothing without me. You always were nothing without me.

Interlude IV Vessel: You. Are. Wrong. In the end, my fractured sense of self was only another piece of fuel for the fire that burns in the eyes of these people before us. They, too, are pained. They, too, do not know who they truly are. They are each stood alone on a stage of their own. And yet, they are here. United by that sense of never truly belonging. They see something beyond their own bleak horizons. And they reach for it. Together. So let us join now. To reflect their joy and to serve as a conduit for their anguish. To swallow their fear.

Though only one month remains in 2023, Sleep Token still has a set of rituals to complete in Germany, as well as their largest venue as a headliner: OVO Wembley Arena, with a staggering 12,500 capacity—tickets sold out in ten minutes when they went on sale earlier this year in June. With the band’s continuous and foreboding statement of “nothing lasts forever,” many fans worried that this would be the last we ever saw of Sleep Token, with everything starting from “One” and culminating to a peak with “Take Me Back to Eden,” only to evaporate into nothing come the new year. Fortunately, several 2024 tour dates have already been announced for Sleep Token, including a tour in Australia where the band will be supporting Bring Me the Horizon and a festival date for the USA in April. Though all we can do is speculate what may come next for Sleep Token, one thing is for certain: This is only the beginning for our favourite band.

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