Sleep Token - Take Me Back To Eden
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
- Aug 10
- 4 min read
This album stands as a true modern marvel in the world of rock music,an immediate eruption that sent tsunami-sized waves crashing across the scene, engulfing everything in their path and reshaping the very landscape of metal.
Released on May 19, 2023, “Sleep Token” unveiled their third studio album, “Take Me Back to Eden,” the culmination of a three part journey that began in 2019.
We left “Sleep Token” in our previous reviews at two crucial thresholds, “Sundowning,” their twilight ritual of a debut (slow released at sundown, cloaked in myth and restraint), and “This Place Will Become Your Tomb,” where the intimacy sharpened and the project first cracked mainstream charts.
Picking up that thread, “Take Me Back to Eden” feels like the mask lifted just enough to show a pulse, grander in scope, harder in contrast, and produced for impact by Vessel with Carl Bown after the band’s pivot away from George Lever. The sessions took place at Treehouse Studios in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, with Ste Kerry mastering the album.
Vessel’s fingerprints are everywhere, vocals, guitars, bass, keys, and synths, while II delivers the precision drumming that underpins the record’s extremes. The expanded production range meant more space for delicate piano and electronic textures, while still leaving room for some of the heaviest moments in the band’s catalogue.
The story of the album’s meteoric rise really began on January 5, 2023, with the sudden release of “Chokehold”. There was no long marketing buildup, just a quiet drop that hit like a lightning strike. Within hours, it began circulating on social media and fan forums, its slow-burning intro and crushing drop pulling in listeners far beyond the band’s existing fanbase.
In a matter of days, “Chokehold” drove the band’s Spotify monthly listeners from under 300,000 to over 1.58 million, a leap almost unheard of in modern rock. By the time the week was out, covers and reaction videos were flooding YouTube, Will Ramos of “Lorna Shore” delivered his own take, and playlists from the mainstream to the underground were adding the track. The single even made its way onto the U.S. Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart at No. 37, despite having no traditional radio push. Lyrically, it confronted the gravity of a toxic yet irresistible connection, where turning “walls to gold” became a metaphor for transforming pain into something valuable to keep the bond alive.
The very next day the second single, “The Summoning” arrived, hitting No. 1 on Spotify’s Viral 50 and drawing millions of streams and YouTube views within days. It became one of the most discussed songs of the year, shifting from heavy, prowling djent riffs into an unexpected smooth, funk-influenced ending that feels like something you’d hear late at night, while lyrically surrendering to a connection both alluring and dangerous, described by fans as “a blood trail, red in the blue,” the sign of complete submission.
The album’s contrasts define its liturgy. “Granite” is built on the pulse of a trip hammer heartbeat, its lyrics steeped in imagery of emotional breakdown and destructive cycles, evoking the weight and erosion of stone against the volatility of sulfur. “Aqua Regia” glides on sleek, glassy keys over clipped percussion, the title referencing a potent acid that can dissolve gold, a metaphor for love and transformation that is both corrosive and refining, dissolving the ego as much as it purifies. “Vore” is among the heaviest and most unsettling tracks, a suffocating mass of distortion that uses its title’s connotations to evoke a consuming, overwhelming desire, one that blurs the boundaries between self and other until the listener is devoured by the emotion. “DYWTYLM” (“Do You Wish That You Loved Me”) shifts to minimalist pop textures, its deceptively simple delivery carrying the weight of self doubt and emotional numbness, asking a question that feels as much directed inward as it is outward.
The back half carries the reckoning. “Ascensionism” is a two act confessional, first a prayer then a punishment. “Are You Really Okay?” asks it outright, its vulnerability stark. “The Apparition” blurs grief into motion. “Rain” rinses the palette for the eight minute title track, “Take Me Back to Eden”, a finale that gathers every motif and burns them sky high before releasing you into “Euclid”, the closing benediction.
And then came the breakthrough. “Take Me Back to Eden” became Spotify’s most streamed metal album of 2023, outpacing even Metallica’s “72 Seasons,” with more than 350 million streams tallied by early January 2024, numbers that confirmed what the feeds already felt, this was not a cult anymore, it was a phenomenon.
Commercially, the album demolished ceilings the band had only grazed before, No. 3 in the U.K., No. 16 on the U.S. Billboard 200, and the industry recognition followed, from year end lists to big stage trophies (Heavy Music Awards Best Album and Billboard Music Awards Top Hard Rock Album).
Not to mention the scandal sparked by the 2025 Download Festival, which placed the band as a headliner alongside giants like Green Day and Korn.
Whether you hear it as genre fusion or genre refusal, the cultural impact is indisputable.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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