Sleep Token played the title track of their new album, Take Me Back To Eden, live for the first time last night (December 5).
The masked collective’s eight-minute progressive metal opus was first heard when the album dropped in May and has since become one of its most listened-to songs, amassing 25 million Spotify streams. Despite that popularity and fans’ demands for the song to be played, the anonymous four-piece held out until the first show of their current European tour, which was held at the 6,000-capacity Zenith venue in Munich, Germany.
Footage of the song’s performance can be seen below.
Response to the live debut from Sleep Token fans has been universally positive.
“This song never feels like it’s 8 minutes long,” says the top comment on one YouTube video, uploaded by user Destructive Viper.
“How the hell do you play a song so fucking tight on its live debut? That was incredible,” says another.
“This song was more incredible live than i could have imagined,” one commenter writes. “Hope I get to see it myself one of these days!”
Sleep Token will continue to tour through Germany until December 11, before capping off this run of dates with a set headlining London’s 12,000-capacity Wembley Arena. Tickets to the show reportedly sold out in 10 minutes after they went on sale in June. US industrial rockers Health will be supporting.
Sleep Token will tour Australia in April 2024, then play Las Vegas’ Sick New World festival on April 27 and New York City’s Radio City Music Hall on May 22.
Metal Hammer gave Take Me Back To Eden an 8/10 review, with journalist Dannii Leivers writing: “This is a record that not only expands the band’s universe and continues to prod metal’s boundaries, but considers what it means to be human. Otherworldly they may be, but there’s the deepest empathy within.”