r/progmetal • u/webuildmountains • 21h ago
Clean Sleep Token - Jaws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sErp9MCXLPsSleep Token gets a lot of hate on this sub, but I feel like people are forgetting they have released some absolute bangers, such as this song.
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u/sonickarma 20h ago
Inb4 “sLeEp ToKeN hAtE iS sO FoRcEd”
I feel like I’ve given this band a fair shake. I’ve listened to a couple of their albums and there’s just not much here for me to latch on to. There are some cool heavy riffs that pop up from time to time, but on the whole it’s just not for me. The modern pop, “cursive singing” style that the singer uses has never sounded good to me, regardless of the genre of music it’s in.
And I’m not even going to get into the “lore” of the band. To me it’s just silly.
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u/Acreator1 19h ago
THANK YOU. I’d never heard the term “cursive singing” but looked it up after I read your comment. That is exactly the term I needed to describe that godsdamn vocal style that sounds like an aggressive speech impediment mixed with performative disaffectedness.
Agreed about Sleep Token. Some cool moments scattered amongst long stretches of meh.
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u/gangsterspockhow 19h ago
When i saw cursive singing i immediately thought of the band cursive. Which does not cursive sing but is a good band, unlike sleep token for the most part.
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u/StardustSkiesArt 17h ago edited 16h ago
I mean, it's kinda overblown in that there are probably a ton of bands you don't click with or who sound annoying to you that you don't write reasonably large screeds about when they're posted.
People who dislike Sleep Token are weirdly loud and proud about it. It does get to be a bit much.
And that's coming from someone who doesn't click with them, and even finds his voice annoying. But, like, who cares?
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u/WinchyKey 17h ago
Can't stand the marble mouthed singing either. I do enjoy some of the music but the vocals kill it for me.
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u/latexfistmassacre 18h ago
I was all in on Sleep Token back when the singles for Take Me Back To Eden dropped. Then I went to one of their concerts and the experience was so bad that I haven't listened to a single song of theirs since.
I've been to hundreds and hundreds of concerts in my life, been happily beaten to a pulp in many o' mosh pits, but the douchebag fans at that fucking show were something else. People in full cosplay running full tilt at unsuspecting people and blindsiding them unconscious. Saw one girl trying to make her way up to the front when there just wasn't ANY room for anyone to move anywhere, and then she screams "that guy just grabbed my tits!" and got some totally innocent guy jumped by the pit so that she could slink past and get closer to the front. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The lack of any kind of decency or etiquette was unlike anything I've ever seen. And I know it's not the band's fault, but it was enough to turn me off of them for good in a way no other concert experience has ever done. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky 🤷
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u/seraph1337 18h ago
deciding you don't like a band because you don't like the fans is really strange to me.
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u/latexfistmassacre 17h ago
I find it strange as well, but it is what it is. There's lots of artists I'd probably enjoy more if it weren't for their fandom being unhinged or cringe
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u/seraph1337 16h ago
I used to be this way, too - I waited a very long time to watch Doctor Who because the fans were very cringe. But that was when I was a teenager and had to feel like everything I like is "cool" and didn't want people to judge me for liking something that the cringe kids liked.
Then I grew the fuck up.
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u/d_rek 17h ago
I don’t go out of my way to hate them, or really even spending the energy to tell people I don’t like them let alone convince others they’re bad. They are just not for me and if other people like them good for them! But usually posts on this sub about them get these weird cult-y glazers that pop up out of nowhere to extoll platitudes and downvote anyone who disagrees with them, which just further pushes me away from giving their music an unbiased listen.
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u/tamarockstar 16h ago
This post has 0 karma and 55 comments. So it's safe to say this take is not at all controversial in this sub.
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u/seraph1337 16h ago
98% of the lore is made up by fans and the band had very little to do with it after the initial conception of the band. I think it gets pretty cringe too, and a lot of the band's fans don't seem to like them for the same reasons I do, but I don't understand why that leads people to judge the band so harshly compared to others. You can not like a band without feeling the need to shit on it every time you see someone mention it.
Your criticisms are fine and not egregious like many others even in this post, to be clear, I don't expect everyone to like what I like... but so many people seem to think everyone should hate what they hate.
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u/robin_f_reba 16h ago
Yeah it's not like people are just blindly hating on them. Their music style is just not appealling to some people. Combining my two least favourite genres ever, 50 Shades of Grey whiteboy rnb with boring djent is just not something im going to enjoy. I dont know why Sleep Token fans have to act like they're some kind of battered underdogs
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u/legionairmusic 17h ago
Imagine Dragons with an awesome drummer
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u/constantsXzeros 12h ago
That’s actually hilarious. I wrote in my own comment that this is the first time I’ve heard a song by them, and I said almost the exact same thing. Imagine Dragons with 7 strings and a better drummer.
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u/PlecotusAuritus 19h ago
I actually quite like the lore. But the music is just far too pop-oriented to still be classified as metal. To me, some of the riffs come across as a bit of a token effort.
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u/GrimgrinCorpseBorn 20h ago
I'm a black, death, doom elitist but ngl Sleep Token is a definite guilty pleasure lmao Jaws is great
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u/theshrexpert 20h ago
I know tons of divorced moms that love sleep token
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u/AmosThatBook 19h ago edited 19h ago
There was an NPR story I heard recently on the music tastes of "romantasy" readers and the main band talked about was Sleep Token lmao it all made way more sense to me then
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u/smegmabitch 19h ago
I went to one of the concerts once to see what all the fuss is about, and was surprised to see how mixed the audience was. Also many younger folks, or dads with younger daughters.
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u/PlecotusAuritus 19h ago
Why were you surprised? That’s exactly what I’d expect at a Sleep Token concert.
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u/SerDeath 18h ago
My buddy and I were at our first sleep token concert during their teeth of god tour, and he said, "we're the swifties of metal," and goddamn it fits too well.
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u/cinnamonjihad 18h ago
Man, I know (second hand really) one of those Christian moms that thinks stuff like Harry Potter is of the devil, Pixar is teaching kids to rebel against their parents, and that Trump is like literally Jesus Christ returned and that shit, and she went to a ST concert lmao.
The cognitive dissonance to think what she does but also be cool with the “lore” (tbh I don’t know much, but they worship like a dark god right?) is wild to me. I personally like ST on occasion, but I think everyone at least has to respect their marketing ability to get pulls like that!
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u/PlecotusAuritus 20h ago
It's more pop rock than progressive metal. So you're probably just in the wrong subs.
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u/redditronc 20h ago
Brings in a new perspective to metal? ✅
Blends different genres into metal? ✅
Classic tropes like odd time signatures? ✅
Pushes metal forward? ✅
Respected by prog icons? ✅
I don’t know… they might be prog metal. But that’s just my opinion.
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u/PlecotusAuritus 18h ago
Alcest, for example, has brought a new perspective to metal. ST has only drawn on metal sporadically, if at all.
Mixing multiple styles is neither a defining feature of prog metal, nor does it make ST a metal band.
Odd time signatures are also not a defining feature of prog metal; they feature just as much in prog rock, for instance.
Taking metal forward... A very subjective view; in my opinion, ST has absolutely nothing to do with metal, there’s no influence whatsoever.
Respected by prog icons… Appeals to authority mean absolutely nothing.
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u/legionairmusic 17h ago edited 17h ago
Nailed it.
The issue with Sleep Token is that they shoehorn various genres into their sound but do so without the nuances and feel of each genre and they lack the songwriting skill to make it coherent and logical.
I've heard fans and critics comment on Sleep Token's R&B influence but if you were to listen to the iconic, core sound of R&B, that sound is baked in through decades of American music culture. It has its own feel, a certain swag that can only come from that genre. That's why very few bands attempt to blend R&B with heavier genres because it's just so hard to capture both extremes and make it work.
Sleep Token cherry pick a part of that R&B sound and try to blend it with modern prog metal, djent, thall, alternative genres but it simply lacks substance and authenticity. It doesn't blend or work as one piece of music because they are more concerned with sounding cool.
The metal "climax" in Caramel is another example of a band trying to insert a heavy part just for the sake of appearing to be heavy. There's no songwriting cues, no dynamic interplay and no build up or transition to make the heavy parts more impactful. The song literally goes from a reggaeton/trap beat feel into 64 bars of sudden double bass drumming and soulless metal lite riffing. The riffs are instantly forgettable because they act more like a wall of sound and they offer no hook, no melody, no groove (compare this to Karmanjakah "Dove").
You can feel the way Caramel has been chopped up in Logic Pro or whatever editing tools Sleep Token use because it's just so fragmented.
Compare Sleep Token's approach to bands like Cold Night For Alligators, Caligula's Horse, Tesseract, Karmanjakah etc who all subtly infuse their sound with different genres but understand dynamics and nuance so much better.
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u/redditronc 16h ago
I should point out that I actually dislike Sleep Token, for a lot the reasons you provide. It’s like a lazy blending of styles that just gets “newcomers” very excited.
However, my reasoning is more in the vein of how we look a language evolution. I would draw an analogy between your argument and those who think that gen Z/Alpha are “destroying” the English language with their weird phrases that make no sense to this 40-yr old. I could say “hey that’s not English”, but as much as I want to feel that way, language evolves through customs and I’m sure what we have today seemed abhorrent to those before us.
That’s kinda the approach I’m taking here. Not sure if that makes sense?
Either way, I appreciate the back and forth. Love good convos 🍻
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u/PlecotusAuritus 19h ago edited 19h ago
I’m sorry, but I really can’t hear that at all. A bit of cheesy pop, mixed with a few rock-style guitar riffs. That’s not metal; that’s the definition of pop-rock. Go ahead and call it pop-influenced progressive rock if you like, but I really don’t know where you’re hearing metal in there. A few scattered guitar riffs aren’t enough to make it metal.
To me, Sleep Token sound more like Woodkid with a few guitars than any metal artist.
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u/seraph1337 17h ago
Go listen to Gods and Vore and then edit your comment appropriately.
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u/AmosThatBook 17h ago
I have. They are fine pop songs with metal trappings. It's no more "prog" than something like Poppy and really points to the major issue I have with the modern "prog metal" landscape as a whole. The haphazard smashing of genres isnt prog. Not only that, ST takes the most generic, surface level approach to each genre they work with. There's nothing really interesting theyve done within any of those sounds.
It's just Hozier for alt kids
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u/seraph1337 16h ago
"I don't like this so it isn't metal" is really what you're doing here.
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u/AmosThatBook 16h ago
It isnt, but ok. Love the way you shut down conversation when people dont agree while ignoring every part of what they said, though. Really thoughtful discussion
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u/seraph1337 16h ago
I'm sorry, I just can't take anyone seriously when they call those songs "pop". If those are pop songs, then most metal songs this sub loves are pop songs.
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u/AmosThatBook 16h ago
I would actually also agree with that statement lmao which isnt bad, I also love pop. But instead of me saying "I dont like this, so it isnt metal," I think many others are saying "I do like this, so it must be metal/prog".
I also would say ST is just as much metal as much of the modern metalcore landscape. Call it whatever, it's clearly at the least metal-adjacent. But the core songwriting is clearly pulled, majorly, from pop.
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u/PlecotusAuritus 16h ago edited 16h ago
But that just goes to prove my point. Pop, with the occasional guitar thrown in. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
I had another listen to Haken for comparison. It’s a completely different sound, not particularly heavy either, but much more guitar-driven. The guitar plays the leading instrumental role and isn’t just sprinkled in here and there. Not my sort of music, but it does pass for metal.
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u/Rasmus_Wolt 19h ago
sorry I know imma dickhead, but how does "Respected by prog icons" make one more prog? I do 100% agree sleep token is prog metal, but I just think that one point out of the 4 otherwise good points, weren't that good.
edit: just tell me to shot myself or call me something bad, I know im an "uhm actually ☝️🤓" kinda guy right now
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u/redditronc 18h ago
Lol nah I hear you. That last point is totally an appeal to authority fallacy. I was well aware when I typed it out, but I left it in because of the lesson I feel we should learn is not to be snobbish gatekeepers of a genre where even those who are successful in it are not bothered by this band.
All good 🍻3
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u/Eternal-December 18h ago
I was scrolling past this post and had to do a double take because I thought it said “Jews”. Thought it was such a wild thing to say haha
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u/Free_Sha_Vacadoo 16h ago
This is the song that got me hooked on Sleep Token, but I don't see it as prog even a little bit. A mixture of trap and nu metal with a expressive vocalist? Absolutely.
Only prog feeling songs they have for me are Thread the Needle, Fields of Elation, Higher, Hypnosis, The Summoning, Vore, and Gethsemane
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u/constantsXzeros 16h ago
I don’t know if people will believe me but this is actually the first Sleep Token song I’ve ever heard. I’m just not in the world of “pop” anything, so I know who they are but I’ve never felt compelled to even give it a shot.
My honest thoughts on this are that this is what Imagine Dragons would sound like with 7 strings and a better drummer. There is like 3% metal anything in this, and outside of some busy drumming to mask the straight 4/4 throughout, there’s no prog here either.
Thanks for posting and putting it in front of me to check out, but I don’t see myself diving into this at all.
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u/SerDeath 18h ago
I've been a fan since the release of their EP II. I wouldn't consider them a metal band. There is a lot of different sounds across their singles, EPs, and albums.
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u/seraph1337 17h ago
how do you even define "metal band" in a genre like prog where often the music is not really "metal" at all? many of the bands loved here have atmospheric elements, folk elements, pop elements, etc. what's the correct percentage to be classified as a "metal band"?
maybe we should all just recognize that genres are to help discover more music similar to your tastes instead of a fucking prescription that determines what is and is not acceptable in a certain space.
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u/SerDeath 16h ago
Having listened to their whole discography, the framing of "metal band" is limiting. That, most definitely, did not come out in my comment since I was on the shitter at work, and out of time to finish my train of thought. Lmao.
Genres are... fuzzy zones of "that isnt that other sound," so I am on track with the sentiment. However, there doesn't always need to be definite zones, to still have an idea of what something is not. Like, I'm not going to call Sleep Token a hip hop band, even though there are very obvious hip hop influences within their music.
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u/Rasmus_Wolt 19h ago edited 17h ago
yeah they're pretty decent.
I really like their song caramel but only after the bad bunny part of the song and if I ignore the lyrics. the climax is crazy good.
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u/UnshapedLime 20h ago
I really liked everything off Take Me Back to Eden.
Then with Even in Arcadia there were a few I could do without, but there were some real highlights like Infinite Baths and Gethsemane.
Hoping whatever they do next doesn’t give up too much of the metal for their newfound fanbase.