Switched on Pop - Is the future of pop...heavy metal?!

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

The UK outfit Sleep Token has done what we once thought impossible: Found commercial success playing heavy metal music in 2025 AD. Their fourth studio album, Even in Arcadia, went to number one on the Billboard 200 upon its release, with all ten of its tracks charting on the Hot 100—this despite the fact that the band has been entirely masked and anonymous through their nine year existence. Sleep Token's willingness to inject their brand of heavy metal with autotuned pop vocals, reggaeton beats, and hop hop inflected rhythms has widened their audience, but in the process had galvanized scathing criticism. Pitchfork gave the album a withering review calling Even in Arcadia "schmaltzy and dull," while Anthony Fantano dubbed the band "metal music for Disney adults." We get to know Sleep Token—the music and the controversy—by listening deeply to the ways they toy with the genre conventions of metal, and ask whether they are changing the sound of pop in the process. AUDIENCE SURVEY 2025: https://switchedonpop.typeform.com/survey2025 Songs Discussed Sleep Token - Thread the Needle, Emergence, Caramel, Damocles Ghost - Satanized Metallica - Hero of the Day Nickelback - How You Remind Me Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the eater app at eater app.com. It's free for iOS users. Hello, poppers, poppets, popovers, pop eyes. Okay, I don't know what to call

listeners of this podcast, but I do know that we have a survey for you to fill out. It's super short and will be incredibly helpful for us if you head over to our show notes and click on the link or go to switchdonpop.com slash survey. Okay, on with the show. Welcome to Switchdown Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. Charlie, right now, a band is doing something that I once thought impossible, finding commercial success playing heavy metal music in the year of our Lord 2025. Love metal. I'm talking about Sleep Token, whose latest album, even in Arcadia, just went to number one on the Billboard 200,

and all 10 tracks charted on the Hot 100 the week of its release. I remember seeing that. I was like, who is this band? I've never heard of them. They're wearing masks. What on earth is going on? Charlie, today I will reveal all. Sleep token is a UK metalcore outfit, which NPR describes as, quote,

a lore-rich, genre-smashing, entirely anonymous English Prague rock band. Let's just get a taste of the sound of Sleep Tocel. in our ears by listening to their song that currently has the most streams on Spotify. It's called Emergence. What on earth did we just hear? There is so much happening in just those 10 seconds, and I want to break it all down. But before we do, I need to tell you one more important thing about this band. For all of their commercial success, they have also racked up a healthy,

amount of backlash. And it's for the way that they've merged metal with all the sounds we just heard. Edm. Indy, even pop. Yeah. A scathing pitchfork review of this most recent album, even in Arcadia,

said, quote, their bumbling composite of generic pop and trendy metalcore is both schmaltzy and dull. A vacant wasteland where joy, excitement, and intrigue, sensations that all good metal and pop should evoke, go to die, end quote. I think the phrase vacant wasteland could be

a positive. It could be the title of a great metal song. That's what I'm saying. Like, maybe that's the emotional state that we need to be in. Maybe you're a fan of this band. Maybe you're learning about them for the first time. Maybe you love them. Maybe you hate them. Either way, Charlie, I want to get to know this band, their music, and the controversy that surrounds them in a way that feels true to the theatricality of this anonymous ensemble. So let's do this in the form of a four-part drama. Okay, part one. Act one. Ah. The origin. Where did Sleep Token come from? They emerged in 2016 from the United Kingdom. They have four members, and these are their names, Charlie, okay? We've got the lead singer, Vessel for our feelings. Then there's a drummer. They call him two.

Okay. Guitarist and bassist, they're three and four. And then when they perform live, there are three backup vocalists called Espera. Okay. These musicians perform masked, barefoot. Any skin that's showing is painted in charcoal. And when I say mask, I don't mean like some dainty, you know, kind of eyes wide shut Balmaskei contraption. I mean full face covering with red, painted arcane symbols.

like something you'd have in a horrible nightmare. Oh, God. You may be wondering about this name, Sleep Token. Curious. It comes from the idea of paying tribute to an ancient deity called Sleep. So the band is a tribute to this creature, this mythic character, Sleep, the Sleep token. Okay, hold on. You're saying that my entire life, as I've been going to sleep, I've been giving like tithings to some metal god that I didn't know existed.

Is this a real mythical figure or something within their own mythology? This is invented by the band, but I'm sure there are some antecedents in various folklore for this idea, the idea of the Sandman for instance or something like that. But this goes even deeper, Charlie, because the band has their own kind of language. They call their gigs rituals. They call their fans the congregation. And they call their songs offerings. This is quite cult-like.

Yes. and the music supports this mysterious spiritual experience from the very outset of the group. They establish a formula on their first album from 2016, titled One, with the opening track, Thread the needle starts with sparse piano and powerful, impassioned vocals. And as the song progresses, things start to intensify. Oh, this is fun. We've gone from this delicate, mysterious opening, singing about how his bed is like a labyrinth, to this instrumental metal and gent-adjacent chorus.

Where I'm getting the sort of Prague-like qualities, you said Prague metal at one point. Prague often implies strange time signatures, hard to anticipate rhythms. It's such a fun part here because it's kind of just one chord repeating over and over again, but you never know when it's going to land. You can't count it. There is some kind of mysterious spell they're invoking with this illusory rhythm. After this heavy section,

we return to the opening texture, but it's been elevated a little bit. I would say it's sort of a middle ground texturally. It's kind of like a hardcore breakdown. It goes half-time, screaming, but with a pretty melody in the background. We've heard three different genres already. Vessel sings you could thread,

the needle time and time again. And just as you might expect from that lyric, we then return to that heavy metal section. But now the dial has been cranked up to 11. I feel like I'm going to Christopher Nolan upside down dream world film right now. That would be an epic coda to this track. I think cinematic is a great term to describe this sound. And the lyrics have their own kind of cinema. They don't say things explicitly. They're kind of elliptical. They leave room for interpretation. Vessel sings, you turn the lights down, come on and find out something to confide in, something to erase. There's the hint of an intimate relationship. There's the hint of betrayal, but exactly what the message of the song is is never confirmed. It leaves you, the listeners,

open to interpretation, just like a great film has a central mystery at its core. I feel like something that I'm unpacking already, though, is that we have this song introducing this band, which takes us through all of these different sounds, is invoking some kind of sleep spell and is introducing what's not just a concept album, but a concept band. It's doing a lot of work, this first song. It is. It's six and a half minutes, and it is constantly going up and down. I mean, we start in this quiet place. We go to that heavy metal chorus. We recede back, but not quite as low as we started.

We then reach the heaviest section to conclude. It's constantly, it's like a roller coaster this song. There's a lot happening, and I think it is a really strong introduction to the band. Now, fast forward, like a decade from this release now, to 2025 and their latest album, even in Arcadia. At this point, the band has really... isn't in popularity. They've traded their initial indie labels for a big major RCA records. They've achieved a new level of fame and a new sound as well. But I still hear the structures that we heard

on their opening thread the needle throughout their discography. So let's turn to act two of our story, Charlie. Where you're going to thread the needle of thread the needle. Let's get to know the sound of even in Arcadia. Arcadia. I feel like I grew up in Maine. We have Acadia National Park. What is Arcadia? Okay, I can't speak to Acadia National Park, but I can tell you that Arcadia

is this sort of mythic, Edenic paradise. You know, it's the promised land of eternally blooming gardens and endless fruiting plants and there's no violence and the only peace and happiness forever. Oh, okay. This is a pleasant title. And yet what's the first part of this album, even in Arcadia? Uh. Dot, dot, dot. The sleep horrors will be there, even in Arcadia.

Let's get to know the sound of this new album from the track we heard a snippet of earlier, Emergence. When I hit play, I think you'll hear that it starts in a very similar way to thread the needle from 2016 with this quiet, gentle texture. But, Charlie, tell me if you hear something different as well. Well, you were living on a promise to word, but I am the request again. Some very pretty piano chords, a very contemporary pop-style-produced vocal. Underneath there is this drone layer, kind of going in and out of pitch. It creates this haunting sort of terror. We actually hear that a lot in film.

Sometimes it's like low drone. will create this tension just before the jump scare occurs. So I can tell that this song isn't going to end well, or certainly it's going to go on a journey from this point, I imagine, because that drone is telling me something is yet to come. Right. There's so many similar characteristics that we've been hearing from this band nine years earlier. We've got those piano chords, I agree.

I'm loving these chords. They've got all these 11th and 16th in them. They're very rich and complex. We've got these powerful emotive vocals with these mysterious lyrics. well, you were laid in verse, living on a promised word. Well, I am the rose you relinquished again. But then, as you point out, Charlie, the vocals also have this really different sound to them. They sound so pop.

They sound autotuned, process, manipulated. That's just what pop vocal sounds like today. So just in this opening verse, it's like the core identity of this band remains, but we're adding this new element. And it's that mainstream pop influence. What happens next? Well, if you're following along at home, things are going to get a little more intense.

It has a sort of hip-hop, like, chopped and screwed vocal where you formant shift down to this lower kind of vibe. And then I love these arpeggiated synthesizers, which are very daft punky and, again, like, so many genre influences happening in just a short little bit of time. Right. Hip-hop style pitch. down chopped and screwed vocals, EDM-style synths,

but we're still waiting for that heavy metal breakdown. Is it going to come in the next section? Let's find out. Nope. I mean, it's kind of like a drill beat. Because it's got that high hat pattern. It's very drill. It doesn't quite have those gliding 808s that you get from drill music,

but it has heavy low end that is reminiscent of it. The thing that's really catching me off guard, though, is, again, I don't know how to count this. Like, what time are we in? It's very hypnotic. It's just in 4-4, but... But the rhythm of the drums lands on these really syncopated off-beats

that throws you off as a listener and makes it hard to count. And the vocal phrasing is also kind of unusual. Right. So to summarize, we had pop auto-tune vocals at the start, then we had this pitch-shifted hip-hop sound, Then we had these EDM synth sweeps followed by a drill-esque trap drum section. Where do we go from here?

Well, I'm still waiting for that heavy metal breakdown. Right. Maybe it's around the corner. Let's see. This is cool. It's taken the sort of drill section that we heard earlier, layered in his very heavy guitars. And once again, like we heard in their first track, The guitars are in all these very unusual syncopated positions that are hard to anticipate and create a real sense of unease, which I like underneath this simple, clean, modern pop vocal production.

It's a nice contrast. Right. And if we're following the same playbook as Thread the Needle, what we would expect next is a section where we're going to come down and sort of return to our quiet textures. Back to our ballad without the piano. Yes. But same vocal that we heard earlier. Yes. I mean, I feel like this wouldn't be out of place on an album by the weekend or something.

I was taking the same thing. It's like weekend leans R&B. This leans a little Prague metal, but it has the same sort of drama and multi-part going through genres and emotional rollercoasters. Definitely. At this point, by my math, we have arrived at the final section of the song. And if this band is staying true to its roots, it's going to be another explosion of heavy metal noise. All right. Nice.

Nice. Oh, my gosh. I feel like you're really getting down to this. And for me, I'm guessing for you, it might be the drums. I feel like jazz heads actually can really appreciate metal because both jazz drumming and metal drumming has just a high degree of sophistication, a ton of virtuosity. and the main guitar riff is like pretty simple, just kind of doing the main melody, but those drums, I think you're grooving to that.

I'm grooving to the drums. I totally hear the connection to jazz you're making. I'm also hearing maybe a connection to drill and trap music as well. The highhats of those genres with their rapid, skittering polyrhythms are very analogous to what we're hearing in the bass drum of the drum set in that section we just heard from Sleep token. So I'm starting to perceive the ways in which, all these disparate genres actually might have a commonality that makes them work together.

Okay, that's emergence. And over the course of its six minutes and 20 seconds, we're going to hear all these different styles coalescing. And I didn't even mention the smooth jazz saxophone outro of this song. And this multimodal approach to musical genre is something that continues in the second most streamed song from this album with a very tasty title, Charles. it's called caramel. Wow, toy piano.

Guitar, really great melody and there's some dissonant harmonic things that are happening here. They might be accused of having gone sort of pop, but you can't. tell that these players really know what they're doing. There's a lot of musical sophistication in their work, even with this very simple intro. And they're staying really true to this structure that by now is well established. We start with this quiet, soft texture. You know it's going to build somewhere. But what happens next is not only a first in their discography, but perhaps a first within the larger world of metalcore. Sounds like somebody took a beach vacation to Puerto Rico.

It's reggaeton, or more accurately, the Ed Sheeran version of reggaeton, sometimes called Tropical House, perhaps. Yeah, yeah. But this is not something I expected to hear from Sleep Token. Nope. A band made up of masked heavy metal mavens with swords and deer skulls and antlers all over there. aesthetic, like, tropical house? What is happening here? I would ponder that their genre exploration doesn't end here and that this track will continue to evolve. I would assume go to darker places.

Charlie, you auger correctly. Check out what happens in the second chorus of the song. Stick to me like caramel. That would not be out of place in like a bubblegum pop song from the 1960s, right? Totally. But then the next line seems more appropriate for this band. Walk with me until you feel nothing as well. Okay, that's more in line with the visual aesthetic of this group. Right.

What did we call it beginning? Vacant. Vacant wasteland? Vacant wasteland, yes. Stick to me like caramel and go with me into my vacant wasteland. I'm having this realization. I feel like they have created these song structures that sort of fulfill their concept, right? If they are this sort of culty, ritualistic metal pseudo-spiritual band that is going to perform rituals for sleep, it's kind of like the intro is almost like a lullaby of each song.

Ooh, yeah. And then like we fall asleep and go darker into our dream spaces. In I think most cases, it feels like we're going to like nightmare world zone. and then like we emerge back out of sleep. Wow. Maybe we like, you know, pop into REM for a minute and back to deep sleep and then like we wake up for a moment and then, you know, I don't know, we get knocked back to sleep and go to the deepest, darkest stuff. I feel like the roller coaster isn't the right metaphor. I feel like dream is the right metaphor and their songs go through a dream cycle.

I find that very compelling, Charles. Let's call it the dream scape structure instead because I totally hear that. that, right? The same way these songs reach their apex seemingly in the first two minutes and then restart and then have to climb into those nightmarish mountains once again, which is exactly what they do in caramel, because after that intense chorus, we're going to drop back down into our little tropical house sound. Why am I happy to have returned here, though? I feel like I'm being sleep token-pilled. Have you hypnotized me? I'm really enjoying this.

I'm definitely not down with the pitchfork review. I'm having a good time. Well, we'll get to the controversy later. Let's enjoy ourselves for now. I won't spoil it. Okay. Though we've only listened to three songs. We know this band well enough, I think, to expect the next move they're going to make, right?

Yeah, we're going to have some kind of breakdown. I feel like that's got to happen. By breakdown, do you mean heavy metal madness? Let's do it. Screaming! What? We finally got a death grow. Charlie.

Hooray! Yes, I feel like that is the emotional place of the vacant wasteland. We have found ourselves there with the death growl. It is the peak of the nightmare. Maybe you're willing yourself to wake up. We've got one more song from this album I want to talk about Charlie. And for this one, I feel like we've established well, this sort of dreamscape terrain that these songs follow.

This time, let's zero in a little bit more. more on the lyrics. Okay. Because with this track, Damocles, I feel like Vessel lets the mask drop just a little bit. Well, I know I should be touring, but I can't. I feel like they just left the sleep token persona, where they're like doing the ritual and presenting their offerings to admitting that they're just like a touring band. And they're almost poking fun at the fact that they've gone a little pop. Yeah, because they're like, I know I should be touring. I don't. know these chords are boring, making this very kind of cloying, perfect rhyme. What are they doing? I think they're being vulnerable, Charlie. The next line is, but I can't always be killing the game.

It's a surprisingly candid moment from this deeply mysterious and theatrical group. It's like, yeah, I'm tired of being on the road. I'm not sure that I wrote interesting harmonies for this song, but I'm human. I am just. a person underneath this charcoal and armor and terrifying masks. And like you say, the music here is kind of gentle. It feels like, I don't know, an indie band from the early 2000s or something. Yeah, especially with Vessel sort of throaty baritone that he's doing here, it's a very sort of indie voice.

When we get to the final chorus of this song, he goes deeper into these themes of doubt and vulnerability? What if I can't get up and stand tall? What if the diamond days are all gone? Who will I be when the empire falls? Wake up alone and I'll be forgotten. Who is this drummer again? Is that four or is that three? A drummer is two. Drummer's two. Okay. Well, two, I guess two sticks. Why not? Sometimes two bass drums, very common and metal. I think he's number two because Vessel and two are the core members of the group. and they're the only ones who have songwriting credits. Okay. So I suspect they are the sort of center of the group.

Sucks to be three and four then, but in any case. No, they're okay. They're out there having fun. Okay, okay. Shredding on their detuned six-string guitars. I do hear the connection between vessel and two here, right? At other points, we've had these very syncopated guitars, never lining up quite with the drums, constantly leaving us guessing.

They're not doing that here. On Damocles, they're in perfect rhythm. The drums are following the lead vocal rhythm, as if they're one instrument. Wake up, blown, and I'll be forgotten. It's very emo kind of vocal styling. The drums are perfectly in sync. I'm trying to figure out what is this song doing that feels different. It's in a different emotional space.

It's a little less theatrical and grandiose. I don't know. I feel like it's pretty theatrical to me, but it's, it's a different emotional space. but in comparison. Well, it's more personal at least. Right, right. It's more referential to the realities of this world that the band has created.

And, you know, over the course of these three songs, which only represent a third of the album, we've still heard so many different styles of music being mashed together, so many different moods and emotional states being collapsed on top of each other. We know that this band is resonating with audience, finding commercial success, but they might have a reason to be vulnerable

and doubting and questioning as well, because for all of their fans, they have as many vociferous detractors, Charlie. So after a quick break, let's find out why people are so up in arms about Sleep token. Attention Spotify. Has arrived on the new Google Jasmine Absolut of Carolina Herrera, a fragrance intense with character Gourman and addicive. Imagine a Volventy, tofu caramelized and tonka-tostata. A combination that seduce from the first instant and he has a weya. Good Girl Jasmine Absolute,

hypnotica irresistible. Discoveringla hoy and let you involver for susentia. All right. Act three. That's where everything happens. Act three, the fury. Charlie, it's time to talk about the pitchfork review. Oh.

And I love uttering that sentence because it brings me back to a simpler time when a mean pitchfork review would make the music media ecosystem them stand still and everyone rushed to their laptop to inhale the invective with breathless wonder. Right, right. So this review was written by Eli Ennis, and it's a bit of a throwback. It's one of the lowest scores that Pitchfork has given to an album since 2018.

Really? Wait, what number did they give it? 2.3. Ouch! Yeah, in 2023, the Italian rock group, Monezkin got a 2.0, but in 2018, a certain band's debut album got hit with a 1.6. Charlie, can you guess which band? I mean, I feel like the cliche would be to say Nickelback.

Charlie, we did a whole episode about this band, and we interviewed the author of The Pitchfork Review. Killers. Okay, I'm going to give you some hints. Led Zeppelin, Brothers, Michigan. Wait a minute. It's the Led Zeppelin Tribute band. That's the first name is shared with a Swedish climate fighter.

Carl. Oh, my God. Last word of this three-name band is Sweetie Todd, the demon barber of... My hints are just making it harder for you. I've never seen Sweetie Todd. Seville? Oh, my God. Okay, middle word of the band.

Okay. It's an article. Chris Farley lives in a blank. down by the river. Okay. First word of the man. We will do this for the entire rest of the episode. Greta van Fleet.

Greta Van Fleet. Greta Thunberg. Fleet Foxes. What was the second? Demon Barbara Fleet Tree. Oh, Fleet Foxes would have been good. Greta Van Fleet. Thank you for stoking my memory.

Of course. As you remember well, we interviewed Jeremy Larson, Fitchfork Writer, about his scathing review of their album back in 2018. And now we have a little bit of the album. have another iconically nasty pitchfork review this time of sleep tokens even in Arcadia. But that's like not even a number that's like you get points for effort. There's so much effort on this record. Like you got to acknowledge that there's, they're doing their thing. It might not be your thing, but I feel like it's doing its thing pretty well. Well, let's go a little deeper

into the criticism. I have prepared a few select quotes for you. Okay. Even in Arcadia is a metal album made by musicians who appear petrified of metal's fundamental pleasures. Screams, breakdowns, violence, riffs, exhilaration, exultation. Instead, Sleep Tokens' major label debut mostly offers sanitized pop rap with all the sexed-up verve of Droopy the Dog. I mean, I give the review a high rating because, I mean, it's the pros is delectable. Absolutely. It's really fun.

Are you sympathetic to the content of the pros? I feel like having only experienced some of this record with you so far, that they are choosy about when to use the vernacular of metal. Like, it's just kind of one part of their grammar. We do hear breakdowns. We do hear some of the heavier moments. But they're almost using it as a momentary stylistic choice within a song to get you into the nightmare.

But the whole song is, the nightmare. It's that whole sleep cycle, right? It's not opening up with a like, da-d-d-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d, like that really heavy, gentee thing, which is also fun. I mean, I like being in that place. And so maybe the reviewer isn't quite speaking the same language as Sleep Token, which I think is probably hampered by the label of metal. Like, it's probably, yeah, it probably isn't metal. It's influenced by and using a lot of that sound, but not exclusively. I think you're right. I think your feelings on the band are ultimately a reflection of how you perceive the genre of metal. And that comes through in the final paragraph of the review, which I'll read to you now. Sleep tokens, ubiquitous

internet buzz and history-making billboard achievements are being touted as a win for metal. But if metal has to reconfigure itself into Benson Boone with a spirit Halloween gift card in order to reassert its commercial authority, then maybe it's better off, toiling. stealing away in basements, at least there it can retain its dignity. Again, metaphors, this is like an 8.8 article here. Such a killer, turn of phrase there. Benson Boone with a spirit Halloween gift card is chef's kiss. I don't agree.

Again, I think it's, I feel like this review is framing this band as all about metal. And maybe that is part of what the discourse is. But I think it's misunderstanding what's happening musically. It's much more musically curious than metal. At the same time, I think that the band also struggles with the expectation of who is this anonymous concept band that is presenting as quite pop forward. Right. So we're sort of navigating the space of commerce and art where it gets messy and uncomfortable. And so it almost makes me think of like when Lady Gaga first came out, we've talked about this on the show before.

But I always found that her image was significantly more bold and transgressive than the music. I think I've probably changed how I feel about that a little bit, but Sleep Tokens music is certainly in the vocal, very pop forward. It's highly compressed. We can hear auto-tuning. It sounds like a pop record. And yet they're using the language of metal, which is very anti-pop. So they're committing a sort of apostasy of your expectation between pop and metal. Like, they're playing with us.

It's very unorthodox. And maybe that's why they're getting some of this criticism. And Pitchfork is not alone here. the popular YouTube critic slash provocateur Anthony Fentano called Sleep Token, quote, Metal Music for Disney Adults. You're questioning whether this backlash is legitimate, and I think I am too, Charlie, because you gave the example of Lady Gaga. I think we could find some antecedents within the annals of metal.

What happens when metal groups embrace a more pop sound? How about the example of Metallica? a thrash metal band that in 1996 released the album Lode, which was melodic, sometimes gentle, sometimes using influence from pop and earlier rock styles. Check out a track like Hero of the Day. Is it kind of like a hoasis covered Metallica? It's got a lot of harmonic movement that's very 1960s kind of vibe. When this album came out, many critics lambasted the group for their perceived softening up.

One reviewer said, quote, It's as if the jack boot grinding the human face were to take occasional breaks for a pedicure. And this quote, I think, is really revealing, right? Because maybe there's also a certain gendered element to criticisms of Metallica for embracing pop or, you know, 30 years later, sleep token for embracing pop. I think one of the things that's really interesting about sleep token success is that their fans do not fit maybe the typical. profile of a metal core listener, like a young, disaffected, probably white male. Yeah, I mean, metal is not a monolith. I've seen all kinds of metal fans of all backgrounds, but yeah, I feel like it generally does skew in that direction. That feels safe to say.

When you look at pictures of the audiences and the fans at Sleep Token shows, it's pretty diverse, and there's a lot of women and non-binary folks in the crowd as well. So they are reaching an audience that hasn't been historically into heavy metal or Prague metal, and maybe that's part of the backlash as well. It makes me think of, you know, I teach Caliphah Seneh's book, Major Labels in my coursework. And he talks about how so often music is invoked as this sort of universal language where everyone belongs and we can all get along. And it's like, no, oftentimes music and especially genre is a way of indicating who's

in and who's out, says, where do I belong? Yes. And so part of what's going on here is this question of belonging. And if there is a certain kind of audience that is supposed to belong in this genre, maybe this band is changing those expectations, and that backlash is actually navigating these differences of belonging. And I think what further creates that sense of belonging is the band's mast aesthetic. That same thing that so many reviewers find kind of gimmicky and unappealing.

In one of the rare interviews that the band has ever done, Vessel said this about their whole onstage get-up. Quote, the aim with sleep token is to provide something people can engage with and relate to without being obstructed by the identity of its creator. Our aesthetic is there to fill the void left by that absence. Oh, you've taken us back to the void. Pitchfork gets it. The vacant wasteland. That's really cool because for as much criticism that they get about being to pop,

they're actually doing something very anti-pop, which is to decenter themselves. You could say, well, it's actually very theatrical. It's great imagery for social media, et cetera, et cetera. But like, this is a band with no identity. That's very hard to pull off in the world of social media and short form video. It is. And it brings me to the final act of our drama here. Act 4. The Future.

Is Sleep token an anomaly? Or are they representative of a new wave of pop inflected metalcore that is about to take over the airwaves and the charts? This is the anxiety express. at the end of that pitchfork article. So what do you think? Well, believe it or not, Sleep Token is not the only masked anonymous metal band to top the Billboard Hot 200.

Wait, what? This month. There was a Swedish group called Ghost, who also wears completely masked costumes every time they perform, who made that same achievement just a few weeks before Sleep Token with their album, Skeleta.

We can get a little bit taste of their sound through their track Satanized. This is weird because it almost feels more like the beginning of metal. Like it's more kind of rock and roll. It's in 12-8. Totally. It has these really sort of thick, dark power chords that remind me of like early Black Sabbath. But it's very melodic.

The lyrics are kind of cliche and silly. It's not heavy. Like there's no heaviness in the heavy metal part of what's going on. hear with Ghost, but it does have a similar popular appeal that does not feel like it's trying to reach out to the core metal audience. It's reaching out to a different audience. And your analysis reveals that maybe the tent for this new metal sound is even wider than we might think. This makes me feel like, yeah, metal might be ready to reassert its place within the pop pantheon, which would be quite a remarkable achievement because one of the really interesting narratives of music and

the 21st century is the disappearance of rock music from the pop charts. Right. In fact, the last rock song to go number one on the Hot 100 was from the band that you mentioned earlier as a candidate for worst pitchfork review score. Credit a fan something. It was Nickelback in 2001 with How You Remind Me. Wow, it's been that long. So if rock makes a comeback, especially in one of its most intense forms, metal music,

through the work of bands like Sleep Token, that would be quite a development. Especially a development if what you're positing is correct, which is that they're actually expanding the audience. I think oftentimes the criticism of the sort of raucous narrative is that it really was music for a bunch of aging white dudes, right? And there was so much gender and race built into the genre that it lost relevance. If you're saying that perhaps there's a slightly more inclusive tent here, that would be a very sort of different narrative. and change for metal and rock. Indeed. And Charlie, though I am but one of those old white guys,

I have to say I'm here for it. I went into this story, having read the pitchfork review, bringing maybe some of my biases, kind of having a little bit of an upturned nose at this whole thing. And I left my sleep token experience ready to congregate at the ritual with the offerings of Vessel 2, 3, and 4. I'm here for it. Charles. All right. So why don't we turn our alarms off, get our earplugs and our sleep masks,

go to sleep, and I'll see you in the dreamscape. We'll walk the vacant wasteland. I'm so sorry to interrupt everyone's favorite part of the show, the credits, but I need to remind you that we have a very short and incredibly helpful survey for you to fill out. It's linked in the show notes, or you can go to switchedonpop.com slash survey. Take a few minutes, fill it out and help us out. Thanks, y'all. And now, without further ado, the credits. Switched on Pop is produced by Rihanna Cruz, edited by Art Chung, engineered by Brian McFarlane, illustrations by R.S. Gottlieb, theme music by Zach Tenario and Jossi Adams of Arc Iris. Remember of the Vox Media Podcast Network, a production of Vulture, which is part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe at NYUMag.com slash pod.

Find more episodes of Switched on Pop anywhere you get podcasts, and go to our website, switchdownpop.com, pop your email address into our little handy box that we have there, and we'll send you a weekly missive summarizing our latest insights. It's very chill on your inbox, okay? It's not going to overwhelm you. Maybe we'll reveal the identities of Sleep Token because Charlie, I figured out who Vessel is. You did?

Yeah, I did. I had a crafty method. I'm kidding. I would never out a band like. But you really not. Totally kidding. But I did, in my digging, I did discover. Oh.

A true identity. Oh, wow. Fascinating. Okay. So I lied. I said I would reveal that in the newsletter. I won't, but maybe you'll still sign up regardless. All right, cool.

We'll be back again next week on Tuesday. And until then, thanks for listening.