You already know who Sleep Token are: masks, sexy songs, djent meets metalcore meets Rag ’n’ Bone man with added otherworldly angst and a touch of old school Ghost theatrics. Viral sensations! And now, incredibly, imminent Download headliners. Over the short space of a few weeks last year, their steady rise to power was rocket-strapped by a couple of runaway TikTok hits, fast-tracking them from the role of solid modern metal midcarders to main event superweights. A near-unprecedented turn of events not seen since the chart-smashing heights of the nu metal era.
Tonight, Vessel and his mysterious chums descend upon London’s biggest arena for the second of two packed-out shows here, drawing to a close a touring cycle that has surely exceeded even the most optimistic expectations set for them but a couple of years ago. And it really is packed out, only a small section at the very top of the back of the arena not smothered by black-clad rock and metal fans eager to ‘worship’ (which tonight seems to mostly just mean ‘sing along politely and have a thoroughly nice time’). Before Sleep Token’s histrionics gets their moment in the spotlight, though, there’s the matter of tonight’s support, Bilmuri, who compared to tonight’s headliners carry about as much mystique as a fart at Christmas dinner.
“This song is about cranking my motherfucking hog!” beams Johnny Franck, former Attack Attack! man and mastermind of this giddy mash-up of emo, sun-kissed pop punk and 80s pop sheen. It couldn’t be more tonally different to the romantic, searing melodrama of Sleep Token, but it’s packing sax solos, so it gets a pass.
By the time Vessel slowly glides out on stage to delighted screams, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that tonight serves as the ultimate litmus test of Sleep Token’s mettle as genuine, long term major players in metal’s big leagues. In the broadest sense, it’s a test they pass with flying colours: they fill the O2’s cavernous space handsomely courtesy of a truly dazzling light show, bursts of red, green and blue lasers and layers upon layers of rolling fog giving the stage the look and feel of some otherworldly, inter-dimensional sermon.
Vessel, meanwhile, has grown into one of the most unique and strangely magnetic frontmen in modern metal, one moment hovering over his lectern like an undead vicar, the next jankily dancing around the stage like a puppet whose strings have been caught on a ceiling fan. There’s no stage patter - that’s part of the deal - but he’s seemingly able to draw pits, crowd surfers and passionate singalongs from those immediately in front of him with the flick of a wrist or a couple of quick leaps into the air.
The show’s setlist is entirely chronological, playing through songs from each album in the order of release - a move that undoubtedly plays into Sleep Token’s increasingly dense mythos, but does slightly stifle the show’s momentum for a while. Once they begin dropping iron-clad bangers like Alkaline and Atlantic (the latter mainly played solo by Vessel as a gorgeous, laser-powered piano ballad), things really pick up. The reaction that greets breakout viral smash The Summoning, meanwhile, is pure elation - even if the song’s unusual structure means we don’t get The Big Sexy Singalong until a full five minutes in.
Often mesmerising, sometimes a little strange but never less than compelling, Sleep Token’s final gig of the year ticks just about every box you’d expect of a festival headliner-in-waiting. Quite how far they can go from here remains to be seen, but on the basis of tonight’s show (and those merch stand queues!), these sermons won’t be getting any smaller any time soon.
