X- …and the night came down like heaven
Read Part 1 first, here.
Sometimes the universe is not subtle.
I’ve been in a creative rut. There, I said it. I had to push back the deadline on Seven Strands Book 3 last August because I just…couldn’t do it. I had the outline, but I couldn’t find the words, couldn’t find the drive for the story, and I didn’t want to push through when there was no passion. I couldn’t remember how to love Rafel, and…the story doesn’t work without that. The work would have suffered, terribly, and Saeli deserves better. Thankfully, my publishing house is super understanding. They’ll give me as long as it takes.
Of course, here it is, September a year later, and I’m still slogging through that first draft, and I hate feeling like one of those writers who sits on projects because they can’t get their fucking act together.
2023 was not a good year. 2024 has been marginally better, but…querying Dragon Singer had torched my writing vibe to ash. I can’t decide whether to keep reaching for trad or go all in on indie. I’m stuck. Like, I can push through projects, but I don’t feel it. Sometimes I can put the writing aside and temporarily shift to art, but right now that’s a dry well, too. I’ve been able to scratch the “give me something” itch with pottery, crafting, and baking (I actually opened an Etsy shop! Check it out here ) but…I’m feeling the lack.
Nothing sticks. Nothing stays. My focus is scattered all to hell.
I follow two circus guys on Instagram. I don’t know why the algorithm gods brought them to my feed, but I enjoy their content. (This is relevant, I promise.) One shares my musical taste, so when he posts a song from a band I’ve never heard of, I immediately go look them up. Some time ago, he posted a video of himself doing a routine to a song called “The Night Does Not Belong to God”, by a band called Sleep Token.
Okay, I’ll bite.
ha.
I looked up the album and hit shuffle while I was driving. It was nice. I confess…I didn’t pay much attention. Some of it was alright. I bounced hard off a couple of songs, though.
A couple weeks pass, and this band I’ve never heard of kept popping back up on my feed. Bits, fragments. I started seeing their logo here and there online. Someone attended a concert. The name started to catch my attention every time I saw it. “Them, again?” Then my husband, who does not frequent the same corners of the internet as me AT ALL, out of the blue one night said, “Have you heard of a band called Sleep Token?”
All right, universe, I get it! I’ll look into them! Get off my back!
I did some research…which immediately went sideways. I couldn’t find any interviews. I couldn’t find anything. I knew at this point that they were anonymous and wore spooky masks, but…that seemed to be the extent of what anybody knew. The few official answers they put out were bonkers. Naturally, that makes me want to know their deal even more. I went to Reddit to see what actual fans were saying.
That was somehow even more bonkers. Rituals instead of concerts, we are here to worship, identities are not important only the music matters, nobody has names, only the masks, but the masks evolve over time, apparently, and I didn’t know who was who and when and where…and oh, this overarching, myserious Lore.
It was weird. It was fascinating. This is, oddly, where some of the hype started to make sense.
This is not a band. This is a cult, I thought.
How did Sleep Token do this? Who the hell and high water are these guys??
Simultaneous to this lore dive, I did what I probably should have done in the first place: I listened to their most recent album. Again, not carefully, but in the car, on shuffle, between destinations. I also made sure to listen to the songs that seemed to be fan favorites. (I distinctly remember Alkaline in my ears on the way to the bank.)
Something shifted, somewhere.
Ascensionism, AYRO, and TMBTE were the three songs that really got ST’s fangs in me. Genre? Fuck if anyone knows. I slept on Euclid until I didn’t, and hoooo…that song never fails to make me cry. Just that perfect combination of yearning and triumph. That was the hook that dragged me under.
I was then advised to listen to all three albums, front to back, to get the whole story, so I did, and…
Oh, this is why they have a cult.
Poetry, chemistry, fury, pain, space, every song interlocked, calling back and forth, telling a story of tragedy, trauma, and underneath, strength. Blood and teeth, in your face, uncompromising, making you feel. The Night Does Not Belong to God, the song that brought me in, gets better on every listen. Atlantic, ouch. That *lift* in The Summoning. The roller coaster that is Vore. Ascensionism. "I'm a winged insect, you're a funeral pyre," "grow back your sharpest teeth". Euclid, Euclid, Euclid, once you know. 😭
Musically, Sleep Token is somehow everything I like. The rhythm and screamy passion of Linkin Park, the room-filling layering and electronic soundscapes of The Birthday Massacre, the poetry and storytelling of Nightwish, completely genrefluid, woven through with some of the most gorgeous piano melodies I've ever heard and a raw, real voice like heartbreak made flesh. Throw a mask and a mystery over all that and command me to worship?
Like...come on. Come on.
This is obsession music.
This guy.
(Technically, these guys; the guitarist, IV, helps with the screaming live. The camera unfortunately never pans to him while he’s doing it in this video, though).
I have never heard anyone scream that clearly…like, you can understand every word. And live?? How do they sound better live when they are prancing around the stage like feral forest spirits? The way Vessel seems to feel every word? The intensity alone is mesmerizing.
Just…what.
Anyway, this was all…two weeks ago, I think? I’m not even sure because I haven’t come up for air yet. I listened to literally nothing else for five straight days. I’ve been binging reaction videos because simply watching people discover this chaos incarnate band makes me grin. I haven’t listened to an album on repeat like this since Imaginaerum, since Century Child, since Fallen, since Middle of Nowhere.
I honestly feel a bit like my middle schooler self in that car to Georgia, watching scenery pass by in the window, just…feeling all the things.
up like the moon and out like the hounds
Whatever the hell this is, I needed it.
Worship.
