When I was a teenager, I’m sure I would have lapped up Sleep
Token’s pageantry – the masks, the mystery (speculation about who they are,
and especially who their mastermind, ‘Vessel’, might be underneath that
Assassin’s Creed style veil, is keeping the rock press busy). But I’m far too
old now for all that silliness to mean much to me. Equally, their theatrics
don’t detract from the fact that the music is genuinely excellent. I came to
this having already fallen in love with their 2019 debut, Sundowning
(albeit too late for it to make my list that year). And, as sophomore albums
go, This Place Will Become Your Tomb is about as good as can reasonably
be asked for. It’s more ambitious than
their debut, expanding the tone and scope and adding a number of surprises, while still keeping the elements that made Sleep Token stand
out first time round. Their ‘sound’ was always
pretty difficult to pin down, but now it’s even more diffuse. The best I have
is ‘piano ballads and electro pop punctuated by sudden flashes of nu metal’. Which probably makes it sound a lot less good
than it is. Perhaps better is a description I saw on Twitter: “Coldplay’s Chris
Martin if he grew up listening to Deftones”. This means, more so than the masks
and the imagery, that Sleep Token are at once both mainstream and
subversive. This Place Will Become
Your Tomb is a rare second album that outdoes its predecessor.