This Place Will Become Your Tomb (2021)
Sleep Token only seemed to emerge from the pandemic even stronger than before. The enforced break had given a fresh wave of fans chance to discover their music and lore and fan groups had begun to sprout across the internet, everywhere from Reddit to Discord, YouTube and beyond.
Returning to the stage with a performance to a packed tent at the 2021 Download Pilot, Sleep Token had officially bubbled up to become a bona fide cult sensation. Their next album featured heavy nautical themes - and co-ordinates featured on each single sent fans on an easter egg hunt ahead of the album's release. By the time they hit the road the end of 2021, playing sold out rooms each night, it was apparent Sleep Token were now one of metal's strongest new contenders.
Atlantic
While Sundowning drops listeners into the thick of Vessel’s destructive worship, This Place Will Become Your Tomb takes us back to where it all started: underwater. Before becoming a submissive pawn eager to spread Sleep’s message, Vessel finds himself at the water’s edge, prepared to take his own life. The record charts his physical and spiritual descent.
Each track is accompanied by nautical depth in metres and fathoms, marking the downward journey of Vessel’s body as it plummets and his mind surrenders to the solace of sleep. Piano-drenched opener Atlantic roots us in the scene, Vessel begging for his life to be taken by the titular ocean’s ‘blue light’.
In the limbo between life and death, electronics twisting, Vessel encounters another form of sleep – the deity that will be his salvation. The nautical depth associated with Atlantic, 914m, is the depth at which angler fish live - hence the fish on the single cover.
Hypnosis
Hypnosis captures Vessel’s first encounter with Sleep. The track crashes in, oozing a darker metal edge as Vessel is seduced by the deity, experiencing a form of hypnotic amnesia. Tellingly, Hypnos is the Greek god of sleep, who resided beside a river running with water that could erase all of a person’s memories with one sip.
As Vessel begs Sleep to ‘take everything’, he is desperate for rebirth, to forget everything.
Mine
Lines begin to blur on Mine, the first hint of Sleep embodying Vessel and using him as a mouthpiece. Sleep seems to take the reins on this track, talking of how He was ‘paralysed’ for years before finding his perfect Vessel.
Despite opening on a doe-eyed note of affection, the track slowly transforms into grandiose promise of devotion. Yet Sleep’s ulterior motives are clear behind the wall of whirring synths and belted vocals. One notion is consistently repeated: ‘You will be mine.’ Sleep doesn’t consider Vessel to be an equal – he is a vessel to manipulate, consume and control.
Like That
The album’s name comes to light on Like That. While Vessel may have survived his drowning attempt, the ocean was where he first submitted to Sleep – and now he is forever ‘trapped under the surface’, frozen in a world where he is forced to fulfil his deity’s wishes.
The water is a tomb in another sense, representing the death of his autonomy. It’s the first flicker of Vessel’s resentment.
The Love You Want
As Vessel descends into the ocean, we also see him sinking further into his subconscious, unravelling scattered memories before Sleep wipes him of his pain. While The Love You Want emulates a lush, euphoric piano ballad, it highlights a profuse imbalance of power in his past relationship.
Vessel is left thinking he has to change to be loved, bending himself to match the other person’s desires, even if it is detrimental to him. Unfortunately, the same is happening again with Sleep. The track doubles as a promise to his deity, vowing to meet His standards.
Fall For Me
Fall For Me’s polyphonic pitch-shifted vocals see Sleep encouraging Vessel to ‘fall for’ Him, to commit his life to servitude forever. While Sleep hides His vulnerability behind a veil of vocal effects, His more honest confessions take place during the music video, flashing on screen: ‘I am inadequate, I am lost. I am no god…’ He needs Vessel to spread his message, each song a Token to entice worshippers back in.
Alkaline
Due to Vessel’s experience of love, he considers his role in a partnership to be one of utter sacrifice. Alkaline explores the catastrophic impact of that mindset, how toxic affection leaves him ‘altered’ forever.
The chemical imagery throughout paints love as a corrosive force, something that eats away at Vessel. That sentiment of consumption is recurring throughout Sleep Token’s catalogue, from Jericho’s talk of tasting ‘new flesh’ to Take Me Back To Eden’s literally all-consuming Vore.
Distraction
While each track slowly lulls Vessel further into the realm of Sleep, Distraction sounds like defeat. ‘It’s too late for me’, he confesses, echoing vocals sinking into the depths of the track. Its gentle yet powerful flow reflects Vessel’s conflicting emotions in the face of Sleep’s control.
While he welcomes Sleep in, he also knows that doing so will forever change him, leaving him unable to escape or return to his old life.
Descending
Descending seems to be Vessel’s own brand of twisted acceptance, acknowledging that he does have some degree of power in the partnership. Without a vessel, Sleep would be powerless, a forgotten deity without a minion to spread his message.
The dark, club-worthy pulse is delivered with a flare of arrogance, Vessel insisting Sleep will always come ‘crawling back to me’. The track asks Sleep to prove his power, Vessel urging him to ‘come on and save me’.
Telomeres
Telomeres is a rare example of Sleep and Vessel speaking on equal footing. While Vessel has been slowly descending further, succumbing to Sleep’s control, Telomeres captures the exact moment that Sleep decided to intervene in Vessel’s journey to the seabed.
The soothing music reflects Vessel sinking into Sleep’s embrace: ‘You guide me in to safety… this is the start of something.’
High Water
While it’s unclear exactly why Vessel attempts to drown himself, there’s a high chance it is linked to his past lover. As he sinks further into Sleep’s control, High Water allows Vessel one final moment to reflect on the life he is leaving behind.
Floating in the watery depths, Vessel acknowledges the toxicity of his old relationship, processing the scars it left on his soul. ‘You’ll never bear the weight of two’, he croons, before admitting that he shouldn’t continue to ‘pretend [they] will ever be together’. Vessel eventually waves off his past, welcoming in his new era of holy allegiance to Sleep.
Missing Limbs
Missing Limbs has the deepest coordinates of the lot – Challenger Deep, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. For all its twanging, acoustic charms, the song is dark. Vessel has hit rock bottom, relinquishing full control to Sleep, his mind is becoming a blank canvas.
Vessel is essentially empty, a carcass ready for Sleep to embody – and He does, the track closing on a hellish whir, the scraping gulf of an electronic sea consuming him.
