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Have Sleep Token just made Metal accessible for everyone? | ‘Take Me Back To Eden’ NEW ALBUM REVIEW
64 Plays1 year ago
Sleep Token released their new album Take Me Back To Eden, which boasts a bunch of styles including Pop, Metal and Indie. We dig in to the album today and share our thoughts with you on what we really enjoyed about this record!
You can also watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7mfJVCp_TzbPNZNMMemJuw
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Heavy Metal
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Minds of Metal, my name is Darien and I'm Laz and together we're a husband and wife team, both pro musicians talking all things heavy metal. And today we're bringing you a new music review.
Review Introduction: Sleep Token's 'Take Me Back to Eden'
00:00:20
Speaker
That's right, we're bringing you a review of Sleep Token's well anticipated new album, Take Me Back to Eden, which came out last Friday.
00:00:28
Speaker
In the build up to this, they released a lot of songs from this album, didn't they? I think actually the first five songs on the album and D-Y-T-W-Y-L-M-3-X-C-9-1-A-1, whatever, the password. Yeah. Do you wish that you loved me? They released those songs all
Album Enjoyment: Unique Sound vs Metalness
00:00:46
Speaker
before this album. So we kind of had a little idea what it was going to be like going into it. But honestly, let's just do this now. Let's get a little of our overall opinions out.
00:00:57
Speaker
I really enjoyed the album, really, really, really enjoyed it. But I don't know, I don't think I enjoyed it for its metallness. Those parts were great, don't get me wrong. But I didn't come away thinking, oh, this is gonna go straight to my top 50 metal albums. But as an aural experience, as a sonic experience, as music going through my ears that I found incredibly unusual, unorthodox combinations of style
00:01:28
Speaker
I'm really enjoying it. What did you think? I just loved it. I loved it so much. Yes, I did. And again, not for its mentalness like yourself. It was just overall such a beautiful experience.
Indie and Pop Influences in Metal
00:01:40
Speaker
And I think the music is just so well done, so well written, so well produced. I think it just ticked all the boxes. Yeah. Well, let's discuss some further points that we've made from a few lessons over the weekend.
00:01:54
Speaker
So the obvious, I don't know, shall we call it the elephant in the room? The elephant in the room is that a lot of this music is indie and pop music. His vocals remind me, I don't listen to indie music so I couldn't tell you who it was, but Louis Capogli, Ed Sheeran, just that kind of poppy, is that right? Yeah, I'd say it will sound smithy, sort of value, but I get what you're saying. That voice, it is an indie pop voice, there's no arguing
Fusion of Styles: Progressive, Ambient, Indie Pop
00:02:19
Speaker
with that.
00:02:19
Speaker
And a lot of the music, very produced, very keyboard-based, produced drum sound, programmed drums, claps, instead of like a snare or something.
00:02:33
Speaker
Going into the album, the first song we heard was The Summoning, and I thought, whoa, this is going to be a good, heavy album. Then each release after that got lighter and lighter. So I was kind of there going, oh, no. If The Summoning is just a token-heavy metal song they've put on to make us think that, OK, it's going to be a pop album, but we still like metal. And the other songs are going to be poppy. I was like, oh, no. Did you really think on that release? I wasn't looking forward to the album, because each song they released, I decided to not like more.
00:03:02
Speaker
Vore was great, Granite was okay, Aqua Regia I didn't dig. Do you wish that you loved me I didn't like and you like that one as well? I like that one as well. It got more away from the metal for me. But what I think they found is they found a great balance between
00:03:21
Speaker
the progressive atmospheric ambient sounds, the electronically produced stuff, the indie pop vocals as well as metal music. I think in the summoning you've got the verse sounds a lot like tool, you've got that electronic interlude that could be from Pink Floyd. Aqua region you've got jazz chords and melodies littered throughout. Ascensionism is like proper indie
00:03:43
Speaker
very effects vocals, programmed drums and keyboards. Take me back to Eden, you've got that rap section in the middle, which is crazy. And then Do You Wish That You Love Me is just an out and out indie pop song. Apparition had the hip-hop hi-hats towards the end, and the Rain verse was very produced with the drums and the claps. But I think they found a nice balance between tying all of those things together.
Unique Instrumentation and Clean Vocals
00:04:10
Speaker
So since we already mentioned the vocals, I would just love to say a few things about it. So A, I absolutely love his clean tone. And you know how, if we're talking about metal, it's a lot about harsh sort of vocal techniques. It's about growling, screaming, you know, all of that, all this distortion that comes through. But I almost don't really care much about his screaming abilities because his clean singing is so good.
00:04:39
Speaker
and there's lots of pop vocal techniques in it absolutely there's like this flips that he does with his voice there's all these falsetto-y bits as well that he can do so well there's vocal riffs you know where he sings like a few notes one after the other very quickly that is very poppy like that is pop techniques but he does it so so well and do you remember when when I heard like a screaming section or something in one of the songs I was like
00:05:07
Speaker
No, no, go back to clean singing. I love that. I just love the clean singing in it. So yeah. But as a screaming fan, I did welcome the screams, especially at the end of Take Me Back to Eden, because that song was fantastic. Probably my favourite on the album. You're on this journey and you've got the rap section in the middle that then goes into that lovely, just really cool and groovy. And then right at the end, just where it goes down into that breakdown with the heaviness and the screaming and everything really awesome.
00:05:36
Speaker
But yeah, no, I agree. And I think what you've said about the vocals is going to link to my next point, because what I felt through the album worked really well, and you could either label this as production or instrumentation or whatever, is that there were heavy tones all the way through the album, even if the instruments weren't metal instruments. In Chokehold, you've got that heavy keyboard tone and sound.
00:06:02
Speaker
It almost sounds like go and check out the song Space Truckin' by Deep Purple from the 72 or 73 album Machine Head. You've got a harsh keyboard sound that gives it heaviness even though it's a keyboard. Oh, I know what you're saying. Yeah. In granite, it's electronically produced but still heavy. In vore, it's sluggish and grungy, slow and heavy. In apparition,
00:06:27
Speaker
You don't have the metal instruments there, but the chords and the chord progressions, if you were to take those chords and put those chords into a distorted guitar, it's going to be metal. And that's what I found really interesting. And the second verse of Rain could almost be new metal, I think, with the heaviness, the chugging. I just thought that they did a really fantastic job in keeping a heavy sound in an album that actually didn't have
00:06:55
Speaker
your traditional metal instruments in, I thought it was a great job.
Metal as a Secondary Genre: Accessibility
00:07:01
Speaker
Talking about unorthodox metal instruments, I just, I loved the piano throughout the whole album and
00:07:08
Speaker
This is why Aquaregia is one of my favourite tracks of the album. Those chords, those piano chords, just gave me goosebumps. I was like, oh, that's so beautiful. Wow. It's like the piano led a few of the songs, didn't it? It was almost a musical theatrey. The final Rain and Euclid, they were very piano based as well. And I thought it was very interesting how they led a lot of the songs with piano.
00:07:32
Speaker
And I suppose it is kind of indicative of pop music, but just not metal. It's not metal to do that yet again. We're here saying that the heavy tones and the instrumentation and the production behind it did lend a piano to...
00:07:50
Speaker
Ultimately, what I really enjoyed about this album is how we can't really pin it to the genre. You know, it's pop, then it's metal, then there's so many other genres just infused into it. There's jazzy chords, there's just so much. So I found that really exciting. I think that an interesting thing is that
00:08:14
Speaker
Because of how because of how in your face and loud and aggressive heavy metal is It's very very hard for it ever to be a secondary genre Yeah, we've seen it be a primary genre. You know, look at new metal
00:08:28
Speaker
New Metal, that came in the early 90s, is the fusion of unorthodox genres with metal. Rap, funk, hip hop, I mean we did our New Metal reel, we got a bit of hate for suggesting Rage Against the Machine, we're a new metal band, but I'll stand by it. They fused rap, funk, and slap bass with metal in the early 90s. It's New Metal.
00:08:48
Speaker
Anyway, but New Metal did that. It made Metal the primary genre and then took something secondary to make it different. And here, it's almost the opposite. They've taken that indie pop approach and then they've added Metal as the secondary genre, which I think is brilliant because how often do we see this?
00:09:06
Speaker
That's really clever. I mean, that is an amazing point, an amazing observation. We've seen bands like Bring Me The Horizon, especially in recent weeks, months and years, release songs that have a poppy sign. Lost. It was a heavy song with metal instruments, with pop melodies, keyboards and sort of pop sound effects. But the bass was still in heavy metal. Whereas this has been flipped on its head. I think it's just brilliant. Such a cleverly written album. Do you have any final points?
00:09:36
Speaker
No, I just think I loved it, you guys. What was your favorite song? Oh, I have a few. I love the summoning. I loved Granite. I just love the sort of conversational, rappy vocals that he did. It was beautiful. And I loved Aquaregia. How about you?
00:09:53
Speaker
So take me back to Eden, I think is my favorite, followed by the summoning. And for me, are you really okay was just stunning. I mean, it was, when you, when you listen to the words, it's obviously, you know, the type of the, the meaning is in the title and he's talking to a friend who might've tried to commit suicide or is depressed or something. And he's asking, are you really okay? And the lyrics are just so emotional and the music behind it is just gorgeous. But I liked more than I didn't
Inspiration and Creative Freedom
00:10:21
Speaker
like. I thought rain was lovely as well.
00:10:23
Speaker
I did not like it when it came out, but the more I listened to it as a part of the album, the more I think it's really good. But just to sum up and finish, I think one of my takeaways from this album is that being heavy metal fans, we are a group of people, we are a community who struggle in
00:10:45
Speaker
showing the rest of the world what we love because the rest of the world don't like what we love. They don't like screaming. They don't like fast guitar solos. They don't like music about the devil and all that stuff. So I really struggle to be able to show music to my friends and family that don't like metal and say, have a look at this. Can you see why I'm loving this? But this album could be the bridge to Gap.
00:11:12
Speaker
those conversations. I would put this on in a car with my friends and family now because what's for them not to like?
00:11:19
Speaker
find the heavy screaming part of the end of Take Me Back to Eden. I wouldn't put the summoning on because they probably wouldn't like that. But what's for them not to like rain? What is not to like about chokehold, especially if they're consuming the standard mainstream pop music that's going on nowadays? Because as we've said earlier in the video, it sounds just like it. His voice sounds like it. The electronic keyboard production techniques sound like it. It's just with those heavy tones throughout, it becomes a different monster entirely.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's really important that bands release these kind of albums these days. It shows that they're ready to create, they're ready to just share it with the world, they're ready to do what they want to do. And I think this is just so, it's inspiring to me because for years I've sort of, I've been struggling with like songwriting and trying to write just heavy music or just this and the other. But this album showed me that actually
00:12:14
Speaker
You can write whatever you want, you can listen to whatever you want and music can be just so varied.
Bridging Metal and Mainstream Pop
00:12:20
Speaker
I think the closest we got to pop music in Heavy Metal was maybe the 1980s where Glam Metal kind of, you know, we already did a video on is Glam Metal just hard rock in disguise? And that was the kind of metal that I thought appealed most to a generic mainstream audience. But now, you know, 40 years later, are we seeing a new breed of Heavy Metal that could actually bridge the gap between Heavy Metal and mainstream pop music? And my answer is I think yes, I think we are.
00:12:49
Speaker
Thank you for watching this video, you guys. I hope you really enjoyed it. Please don't forget to give us a like, a share and subscribe to our channel for new videos. That's right. And if you guys have listened to the album, then let us know in the comments what you think. Online this week, especially since the release of the album, we've seen a huge variety of opinion. We've seen some people saying metal album of the year and we've seen some people saying you shouldn't use the words heavy metal with this album at all. So let us know where you sit in that spectrum and let us know in the comments. Thanks for joining us and have
Conclusion and Viewer Interaction
00:13:16
Speaker
a metal day. Have a lovely day. We'll see you very soon.