Metalhead Blog

United in Chaos | Summoning the Lich | Concept Explained

Here is my interpretation of the story behind Summoning the Lich’s 2021 album, United in Chaos. 

** What follows is my personal interpretation of the epic fantasy concept. I base my explanations on the lyrics as well as band interviews and fan theories. 

Track 1) “The Nightmare Begins” 

An old druid—the last of his kind in the kingdom of Rodor—has been maintaining the veil of chaos alone for centuries. The years have weighed heavy on him. He is weak, tired, and close to death. His hatred toward the selfishness of mankind has festered. The very souls he has spent his life fighting to protect are nothing for his sacrifice. 

To stay alive, he seeks a dangerous power—one that could destroy humanity. He unearths an ancient, buried shrine and unleashes chaos. Demonic creatures claw their way into existence, and the druid prepares to seize control of the minds of men. 

He begins to harness the power and starts casting dark spells that turn the sky violet. An army of men rise up to stop the evil sorcerer before he can complete the spell, but they don’t know it’s a trap. The druid lured them to his cave as a way to fulfill the sacrifice needed for the final acts of the spell. 

The druid trades his soul for power in immortality and becomes: The Lich.

Track 2) “Cult of Ophidian” 

The Watcher gazes into the future and sees bloodshed, devastation, and madness—all at the hands of this powerful being who bends men’s will to his own. He cannot see this being, but he sees the destruction he will bring. 

The Watcher wakes from the vision and tries to warn the clan of what is to unfold. They refuse to heed his warning, so he seeks to tell the Elder of his clan—only to find the Elder has been corrupted by this being. 

The being speaks through the Elder’s lips and condemns the Watcher to a fate worse than death. This being—the leader of the Cult of Ophidian—tricked the people of the Watcher’s clan and made them think that he joined the Cult and purposefully did not warn them of what was to come, so they damned his soul for all eternity, when in truth the Watcher was a victim of the Cult just as much as they were. 

Track 3) “The Gatekeeper” 

After the Lich’s awakening, many try to destroy him. Valant King Elelogarr leads his armies across the sea to destroy the evil forces taking over the land led by the Dragon Lord of Suffering: Algaliarect. 

The king arrives at the water gates to the kingdom. The demon creatures crawl from the sea and attack the King and his legion. They decimate his ships and every man onboard finds themselves a watery grave. 

Track 4) “Demon of the Snow”    **(My personal favorite on this album)

By now the dark forces of the Lich have taken over nearly every kingdom. One holds out: A castle in the middle of a snowy mountain range is protected from invading armies by way of a horrendous beast. 

Each year, the people gather in a ceremony to thank the Demon of the Snow and pacify its hunger for another year by providing it with sacrificial virgins. 

But on the night of this feast, the beast awakens with new sentience granted to him through the power of the Lich. The beast turns on the people and makes THEM become his slaves as he had been a slave for their protection for all those years. 

Track 5) “Predatory Reflection” 

Here we get another glimpse into the corruptive power of the Lich and how he inspires each person to become indulgent slaves to their worst sin. 

A woman falls victim to her own vanity. She is tricked by the face staring back at her in the mirror. Blinded by her pride, she becomes trapped in a mirror. In this mirror she is forced to see the ugliness of her own soul for all eternity. She goes mad and begins to mutilate her own body. She tears out her eyes so that she doesn’t have to look upon herself any longer. 

Track 6) “Acid Reign”

Another King marches his armies to defeat the evil Lich. Greedy to be the one to take down the sorcerer, he will stop at nothing to defeat him and conquer the evil in the world. He gathers the largest army the world had ever seen. Every town and village the king passes he forces all able-bodied men to march toward victory and burns the rest to the ground to make way for his army. 

He marches to the lair of the Lich, leaving burning forest and fields in his path. They reach the lair, and the Lich stands atop his mountain. He slams his staff into the ground and shatters the land just the mountain erupts. The flying pieces of rock and molten lava rain down on the King and his armies—burning all in a torturous death. 

Track 7) “United in Chaos”

With ash still clouding the air, the Lich collects all the villains he has made: the Watcher, King Elelogarr, the Demon of the Snow, the woman in the mirror, and the soul of the king he just defeated (and one more Evie the Temptress). They join the Lich and venerate him for his evil greatness. 

They rejoice as rulers over all mankind. 

Track 8) “Descend”

The villains go about doing their worst unto humanity. One of the last heroes alive, a mage who has been helping the destitute, is caught and captured by the Lich’s evil forces. He is taken and tortured. Day after day they cut him open and cauterize his wounds only to reopen them and more on the morning. 

As he lies dying, he utters an incantation and hides away a vial of his blood before he dies. 

Track 9) “Hymns (the Witches of the West)”

A coven of witches sets up on a village. Blood is spilled and one of the high priest’s sons is burned to death in retribution. 

The coven then gathers their forces to seek vengeance. They gather around the village and begin to chant. Their incantation rises and all the children of the village perish at the hands of their curse. 

The children then rise as undead to terrorize the village. The village surrenders and begs for their lives, but the witches give no mercy. They don’t stop until every last heart is ripped from their chests.

Track 10) “Death Crystal”

A man of royal blood, exiled when his land was conquered by the invading king, wanders the endless desert. 

He meets a woman who offers him a way to take back what was stolen from him. She gifts him a crystal and departs. He returns to his kingdom and uses the power of the crystal to lay waste to the usurper of his throne. All nobles within the castle are laid to waste. With each soul the crystal collects, it grows darker and darker until it is black. 

His vengeance is complete, but it comes at a price. The power of the crystal transforms him into a beast-monster enslaved to the woman who gifted him the crystal. 

Track 11) “Temple of the Bone”

Here we return to the Lich (I think) and we find all the glory of death and destruction has not satisfied him as he so thought. Now that he has conquered and had his fun, there is nothing left for him to do. He cannot die and he now feels trapped by immortality. He sees that a life that will not end is meaningless. He has nothing to do but wait for a death that will never come. 

Track 12) “The Lure of the Necromancer”

The Lich, now regretting his decision to become immortal, seeks out the only one who might be able to reverse the curse. He seeks out the Lord Death: the Necromancer and watches him go about his work. 

The Necromancer comes to a man mourning over the loss of his betrothed—the only woman he ever loved who died the night before they were to be wed. A figure appears to the man from the shadows of the graveyard. The being smells of rot and explains that he can bring back the love of his life. The man asks after the gift will cost. The Necromancer replies that the man need only feed her when she wakes and she will be his once more. 

The man agrees and the Necromancer calls upon the dead and the ground splits with hands shooting up from the grave—they claw through, and the man meets his undead bride. Her body is all decay and though she is animated, she is not alive at all. 

This was not what he agreed to, he tells the Necromancer in fear. But the Lord of Death only smiles and says he has held up his end of the deal, now the man must do the same and feed her! The undead bride launches at him and tears through his flesh to feast on his guts. 

But Necromancer does not let him die—oh no—he spells the man’s body to stay alive and watch as the bride devours him alive. 

And that is where we end the album. This is the first of a trilogy that tells the story if the Lich. This first album we get to see the Lich rise to power and explore the deplorable side of human nature. This is a set up for the following album which plays into the motivation of the druids and their hatred for man. 

EP One & Two | Sleep Token | Lore Explained

Here is my interpretation of the story Sleep Token’s 2016 EP One and their 2017 EP Two.

** What follows is my personal interpretation of lore. I base my explanations on the lyrics, music video imagery, band interviews, and fan theories. 

EP One:

Track 1) “Thread the Needle”

The human (whose real name we don’t know because his identity and all his past memories have been lost to him) enters into a dream. But its not just any dream, his subconscious has wandered into the realm of nightmares ruled by an androgenous god of that realm named “Sleep.”

When we get to the heavy section of this song, we flash forward in time and next thing we know, we see this man experiencing his rebirth as the vessel for this deity named sleep. He will henceforth be referred to as “Vessel.”

Track 2) “Fields of Elation”

This song I believe explores Vessel’s revelry in his new world. He and Sleep are now one being and he is loving it. It’s a bit like rolling around in the warmth and comfort of your bed not wanting to face the cold responsibility of the world outside. 

It’s also very womb like, and I think this represents Vessel’s incubation period where he is being remade from the inside out by being both consumed by and consummated with Sleep. In this way, he can be seen as both the father and the child of Sleep’s creation. 

Track 3) “When the Bough Breaks”

This is Vessel wanting to stay in this “womb like” transformative state of existence within the cocoon of Sleep’s perfect world of suspended time. However, the bough must break, and he must emerge to be reborn so that he and Sleep, together as one, can set about their mission to transform the collective consciousness of humanity. 

There are also the seeds of red flags here that signal the toxic sort of relationship to come. 

EP Two 

Track 1) “Calcutta”

Side note: Calcutta is a city in India named after the Hindu goddess Kali who represents time, death, rebirth, change, power, and destruction along with sexuality and violence. “She who is black” or “She who is death.”

Here we go back in time to get a closer look at the God(dess) “Sleep” who has taken over Vessel and is able to “live” again through him. We now get Vessel’s backstory. I said earlier that Sleep is an androgenous god, but he/she can take any form. When she meets Vessel, she reads his inner thoughts and desires and finds that he will best be confronted by her female form, so she takes on a feminine shape. 

The deity Sleep has been trapped in another realm. I imagine it as a nightmare realm of exitance where nothing is quite real (locked away and only able to reach humanity through dreams and nightmares), wishing for the day she can walk the earth again. 

This song I believe is Vessel meeting with Sleep on multiple occasions. Each time he wakes, he wishes he could go back to her. One night he dreams he enters this temple in India and stands before the statue of the goddess Kali. The statue begins to speak to him, and he learns her real name which no human can pronounce so he calls her “Sleep”. 

Now, the man who will soon be known as “Vessel” falls in love with this goddess. He is positively enraptured and obsessed to the point of near madness. He has never felt this way about anyone or anything before. It’s surreal, it’s all consuming, it’s love on a whole other level. It’s more than an emotional and even more than sexual connection, it’s a desire to own, her to devour her, and become one with her. 

He learns Sleep feeds on human emotions but thus far she is only able to feed off emotions experienced in dreams/nightmares. These are fabricated by her. However, she wants the real, unadulterated, raw emotions. She desperately wants to walk the earth again to feed on these emotions, but she requires the possession of a human in order to enter the human realm. In her dreamland, she asks for Vessel to become—well, her vessel on earth. 

Willing to do anything to please her, he says yes, (yet he doesn’t realize it will come at the cost of his memories). She possesses him by eating him alive and when he wakes up, he is no longer himself. He is one now called Vessel. And this is where “Thread the needle” takes place and we get the scene of his birth. 

Track 2) “Nazareth”

Vessel wakes up beside his girlfriend. He is no longer his old self. Though his consciousness is still present, it’s altered. His soul had merged with that of the goddess Sleep and he and her become this sort of Frankenstein being of man and deity—mortal and celestial—where both are conscious inside of Vessel’s body, but there is almost no way to delineate one from the other because when Sleep devoured him, not only did he become her, she also became him as well—sort of this symbiotic relationship. (And that is why Sleep is sometimes referred to as “he.” Vessel is the male counterpart to Sleep. They are two sides to the same coin.)

As a way for Sleep to test her new vessel, she tells him to kill his girlfriend. He agrees and shoots her.  But he doesn’t stop once she is dead. After that he and Sleep… um, eat her dead body. (Vessel can change forms and take one of Sleep’s many monstrous shapes when he chooses. I imagine them taking a cockroach-like form as they devour her body.)

Track 3) “Jericho”

After this bloodbath, Vessel has proven himself to Sleep. He and Sleep are one and it is true synergy. This song is the celebration of their union and Sleep and Vessel have a… Sexual encounter possibly while in one of Sleep’s more monstrous forms. I’m not going to go into detail explaining how that looks, just use your imagination:)

Once they are done, Sleep tells Vessel what it is she wants him to do for her. She wants to be worshiped and wants to bring the masses to their knees before her. Vessel is only too happy to oblige. 

Sundowning | Sleep Token | Lore Explained

Here is my interpretation of the story behind Sleep Token’s debut 2019 album Sundowning. 

** What follows is my personal interpretation of lore. I base my explanations on the lyrics, music video imagery, band interviews, and fan theories. 

Track 1) “The Night Does Not Belong to God” This track is Vessel beginning to preach to his followers through the music and the band Sleep Token.  He is saying to anyone who will listen that though you may try to live by the rules of another god during the day, we are all ruled by the goddess sleep at night when we sleep and enter her dream realm. Whereas some gods may make you feel guilty or punish you for your sins, when you enter Sleep’s realm you are returning home to the safety of exploring with acceptance whatever dark inner thoughts and desires you abscond from in the day.  This song is inviting the listener to enter Sleep’s realm and enter into worship of the god of night.

Track 2) “The Offering” This is a love song from Vessel to Sleep. It explores temptation. Sleep is often likened to Eve or the serpent of the garden. This is Vessel showing his followers how to worship and how physical desire and spiritual worship are linked. Basically, saying a way to worship Sleep is to get it on!

Track 3) “Levitate” So far, it’s all been perfect harmony between Vessel and Sleep. Like most beginning relationships it’s all passion and infatuation—a temporary madness. But what was once all fiery passion between them is beginning to cool.  Now cracks are starting to form in their relationship as Vessel clings onto Sleep, growing insecure about her dedication to him. She is starting to act slightly cold to him and he fears now that people are beginning to worship her, she may leave him. Or that once she grows powerful enough, she won’t need him anymore and will move on without him.  Vessel doesn’t feel like he’d be able to survive it if she leaves. His being is so deeply married to her that he doesn’t know who he is without her.

Track 4) “Dark Signs” Vessel is thinking back on when he first met Sleep and how he should have seen the warning signs of her nature. He realizes he can’t remember anything about himself before her. He is starting to feel the loss of his identity when she retreats from him.  When they first joined together, she was with him 24/7. Now she recedes from him to return her consciousness to the dream realm (because she still has to rule there. But Vessel can’t go there because he must maintain their tether to Earth through his human body. He thought she’d be with him all the time and her absence is terrifying. He seeks comfort in others and hooks up with women. It’s that very immature thing some people do in relationships when they’re feeling unloved is to go and try and make the other person jealous.

Track 5) “Higher” Vessel and Sleep fight. And it’s the sort of hateful, angry fighting that epitomized why domestic violence cases tend to be the most violent. They fight, and it’s the kind of fighting that people in toxic relationships tend to romanticize as “passionate.” Both Sleep and Vessel are so caught up in each other that they think this fighting is a sign of love.  This is both parties manipulating each other. Vessel feels like she owes him for allowing him to use his body and she feels like since she is a god he should only be so happy to grant her his body. Sleep thinks Vessel is being too clingy, and Vessel feels like Sleep isn’t being honest with him and letting him into her world. Basically, this is all the bad things that can happen in relationships. However, these two are so messed up that they need this constant fighting, they want it, they crave it, they create fights because that’s how they operate in this selfish, manipulative, narcissistic, love/hate/love relationship.

Track 6) “Take Aim” This is Vessel being co-dependent on Sleep. He needs constant validation and it’s almost never enough. He is obsessed with her to the point of self-destruction. Despite how toxic their relationship is, he would still rather suffer with her than spend a moment without her. Which sounds sweet but is really unhealthy as far as relationships go. Basically, Vessel just reaffirms his love for Sleep in this track.

Track 7) “Give” This is actually a sweet song from Vessel. He’s asking Sleep to let him in. So far, she’s kept him at an arm’s length probably because she doesn’t want him to see just how dark and terrible she can be. He is saying he will be by her side no matter what; it doesn’t matter what she’s done.

Track 8) “Gods” The heavy sections of this song I imagine as Sleep expressing her dark side. She is pushing Vessel away (saying she is above even gods and he is insignificant) because she is destructive like that and feels him getting too close.  I imagine her mercilessly killing a bunch of people and going on a rampage. Vessel feels her pain as if it is his own and realizes she might like this tumultuous stasis— this angry painful state of being is where she operates.  At the end of the track Sleep hurts Vessel, showing him how easy it is for her to inflict pain without remorse.

Track 9) “Sugar” Vessel is reaffirming his love for her. He has now seen how evil she can be, but he doesn’t blink. He’s grown addicted to this pain. He’s just as self-destructive as she is. They have been through much together and he’s not about to turn away now. He bares himself to her and says do your worst.

Track 10) “Say That You Will” Together the couple have worked out their difference—for a time. But Vessel feels Sleep retreating from him again. She spends longer and longer in the dream realm, not surfacing nearly enough for his addiction. He has come to know her so well, and he feels like she is about to leave him.He begs her to stay. But after a while she does not return. He waits and waits, day after day—the waiting driving him crazy. This is the longest she’s ever been gone.

Track 11) “Drag Me Under” Vessel can’t take it anymore; he goes to seek her (or draw her out by a suicide attempt.) He jumps into a body of water and refuses to swim.

Track 12) “Blood Sport” Vessel’s suicide plan worked. It draws sleep back to the earth realm. She makes him swim to the surface. After saving his life, Sleep is pissed at his attention seeking behaver and says that they’re over. Vessel explains he had to do what he did just to talk to her. He says he is willing to do anything to get her back. He admits his mistakes in their relationship.   And that’s where we end the album, on a bit of a cliffhanger not sure of Sleep and Vessel with reconcile their relationship or of Sleep might just kill him there on the spot.

This Place Will Become Your Tomb | Sleep Token | Lore Explained

Here is my interpretation of the story behind Sleep Token’s 2021 album This Place Will Become Your Tomb.  

** What follows is my personal interpretation of lore. I base my explanations on the lyrics, music video imagery, band interviews, and fan theories.

Background info: There is a hidden code on the album booklet that contains coordinates that lead to Point Nemo which is the “Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility.” It is the place in the ocean that is farthest from land. It’s also known as “space craft cemetery” which where the most spacecraft debris resides.

There was also another set of coordinates that led to Davidson Seamount which is A Whale Fall location off California –basically a whale tomb at the bottom of the ocean.

Numbers associated with each song tells the depth in fathoms which gets progressively deeper as the album goes on.

Track 1) “Atlantic” We last left off with Vessel having survived a suicide attempt. He jumped into a body of water and nearly drowned if it wasn’t for Sleep saving him. While he was drowning, he got a glimpse of the nightmare realm where Sleep resides and learns there is a secret portal somewhere in the ocean that leads to Sleep’s lair. Now, after saving Vessel from his suicide attempt, Sleep was pissed and wanted to end things with Vessel, but Vessel begged her to stay—saying he’d do anything to keep her. Sleep says she needs time to think things over and forces Vessel to go to the hospital to recover from his suicide attempt. He lays there in the hospital wishing he were dead, wanting only to go to sleep so he can return to her. But she refuses to speak to him until he has recovered fully.

Track 2) “Hypnosis” This is Vessel longing to return to Sleep. Wants to be devoured by her once again. Possibly dreaming about times past. I imagine during his stay at the hospital perhaps the drugs he’s on gives him insomnia which is driving him mad since the only time he can reach Sleep now is when he is asleep.

Track 3) “Mine” Vessel is begging Sleep for an answer, reminding her how they were meant to be together. He decides that even if she tries to end things with him, he won’t let her.     Track 4) “Like That” Vessel finally gets to speak with Sleep. He offers himself up like a sacrifice, asking for her to hurt him as he knows she gets a sick pleasure out of hurting him. He doesn’t enjoy the pain, but he is willing to endure it just to be near her. She takes the opportunity to get her fix and tears into him. Yet, when it’s all over, she still decides she wants to end things with him.     Track 5) “The Love You Want” This is Vessel’s reaction to being dumped by Sleep. He is completely cut off from her and can’t even reach her in his dreams. He’s not just going to lie down and die, no, he goes to seek her out. Now, I talked about how Sleep reigns over the nightmare realm which can only accessed while you’re asleep—BUT there is one other earthly way to access it. Somewhere in the ocean there is a portal that leads to the nightmare realm. The location of this portal is unknown but that doesn’t stop Vessel from searching.   Track 6) “Fall for Me” V essel goes on a mission to find this portal. He sets out to search the deepest parts of the ocean to seek his lover. Now, it’s pretty impossible to get to some of these places so, I think he does this by astral projection. By freeing his consciousness from his earthly body, his can travel the ocean without need for air or any special equipment. This is not without risk, however. Because he is leaving his body for another realm and because he is traveling so incredibly far, if—say—the astral projection of himself were to get eaten by a sea monster, he will essentially die as his consciousness will cease to exist. I believe this is Vessel setting out on his perilous adventure and traversing the deep.   Track 7) “Alkaline” The first place he searches for the portal is Davison Seamount where he encounters the bones of an ancient dead whale. Here, I believe he has a conversation with the whale, (Now, I don’t think the whale actually speaks back, but it’s sort of Vessel talking to the intimate bones about what he’s doing there.) He tells it about Sleep and tries to explain what it is about her he loves so much but he finds it difficult to put into words.   Track 8) “Distraction” The portal was not at the whale graveyard, so he keeps looking. The farther away from his earthly body he travels and the longer he is away, the more he risks his death. If he is separated from his body for too long, he won’t be able to return and will either die or become one of the phantom-like ghosts that haunt the waters for eternity. Already he can feel his soul fracturing and growing weaker the farther he travels. But he decides it’s too late to turn back. Either he will find her, or he will die trying.   Track 9) “Descending” As Vessel travels the ocean deep, he begins imaging how his meeting with Sleep with go once he finds her. He begins falling down that spiral of depressive thoughts of how bad things could go. He starts to make up the conversation in his head and grows fearful that he will only meet rejection when he finally sees her. He is slowly coming to terms with the fact that this journey could all be for nothing.   Track 10) “Telomeres”   Vessel searches the spacecraft cemetery at Point Nemo. He doesn’t find the portal there, but he does discover a clue that leads him to believe the portal is at the deepest part of the ocean. He’s already been away from his body for too long and he begins hallucinating—seeing Sleep everywhere he turns. Traveling 35,000 feet under, will most definitely cause the permanent separation of his consciousness from his body. Doing this will effectively bring his death. Will he do it?   Track 11) “High Water” In answer to the question will he sacrifice his life for this lover who probably doesn’t even love him back? Absolutely. Vessel dives deeper and deeper. He feels his soul separating and the tether to his early body slipping from his grasp the farther her goes. As he swims, he tries to ask himself if this was worth it. During this whole journey he’s been in denial about Sleep being faithful to him. He thinks there is someone else, but he doesn’t want to face that possibility. However, the closer he gets to her, the more his is forced to come to terms with the fact that she may never take him back and she may have even moved on already.   Track 12) “Missing Limbs”  Vessel makes it to the portal at the bottom of the Challenger Deep, officially sacrificing his life as he crosses over. Here I imagine him laying eyes on Sleep for the first time it what feels like eons to him. And the look that passes between them tells him everything he needs to know: She’s moved on. She doesn’t love him. He shouldn’t have come.

Take Me Back to Eden | Sleep Token | Lore Explained

Here is my interpretation of the story behind Sleep Token’s 2023 album Take Me Back To Eden.  

** What follows is my personal interpretation of lore. I base my explanations on the lyrics, music video imagery, band interviews, and fan theories. 

Background: I believe all the art we have with this album is different versions of the deity Sleep. This album takes place in her lair—her home which is the nightmare realm. In this realm her physical body is ever changing. Just like the landscape of nightmares that shift from one second to the next, Sleep’s physical manifestation goes through many forms and in each song, we get to see a different version of what she looks like in her own world.

Track 1) “Chokehold”

We last left off in the previous album with Vessel arriving in the nightmare realm, having scarified his life to come seek Sleep. But when he arrives, he realizes she doesn’t want him back and she’s set her sights on another Vessel. 

This track is Vessel explaining how far he’s come to get her back and how he’s not about to just let her go. She has this hold on him; she bewitched him when she made him her vessel and his love for her is inescapable. 

Track 2) “The Summoning”
This is Vessel trying to tempt sleep back into his arms. He’s saying he still belongs to her. He’s still her vessel—body and blood—and I believe this is him attempting to seduce her.
Is he successful?

Track 3) “Granite”

He gets VERY close to seducing her. But, at the last minute, she pushes him away. Vessel, now frustrated, tries to talk out their problems. 

I believe this song is a bit of a back-and-forth conversation between Vessel’s dialogue and Sleep’s—though Sleep speaks through Vessel, using his own body to have the conversation so it’s like he’s talking to himself. The talk starts off with Vessel being reasonable and pointing out both of their flaws and mistakes made over the years. 

Track 4) “Aqua Regia”

This argument comes to nothing and both storm off in anger. Vessel sits alone, watching the landscape change with shifting nightmares and feeling like he is shifting too—like he’s just a part of the landscape—like he’s just a relic of this nightmare land. He fears if his soul/ consciousness stays here much longer he will lose himself and dissolve into the world and just become another tortured soul that haunts the land. 

Track 5) “Vore”

Vore is short for “Vorarephilia” meaning a sexual fetish having to do with being eaten alive. And that’s exactly what this song is about. I think Sleep seeks Vessel out and propositions him with this “eating” thing—like they did when they first joined together. 

Vessel agrees and though it is extremely painful it’s also sort of pleasurable too in a sick kind of way. He gets to be fully inside of her and see what she looks like from the inside out. 

Track 6) “Ascensionism”

From inside Sleep, Vessel gets to—in a limited kind of way—possess Sleep. For once the tables are turned and Vessel sees the world through her eyes. 

He sees how desperately she wants to be set free from her nightmare prison and be able to walk the earth again. He then sees her real reason for devouring him: she is using him to trade places—to make him stay trapped in the nightmare realm forever while she uses his lifeforce to ascend to earth. 

Track 7) “Are You Really Okay?”

Sleep has now traded places with Vessel, and she Ascends to Earth using his body while he is trapped inside her monstrous body in the nightmare realm. 

However, when she arrives on Earth, she arrives at a different time. Through some witchery and reversal in fate, she arrives at the time just before she devoured Vessel for the first time. Back in the EP Two the song “Nazareth” where Vessel wakes up beside his girlfriend just after having agreed to be Sleep’s vessel. That is the time and place where Sleep arrives. She’s unsure of what to do, not expecting this shift in time. 

The girlfriend asks if Vessel is okay, and we learn that Vessel, in his life before, was very depressed and suicidal and used to inflict self-harm. 

Track 8) “The Apparition”

Here we go back to Vessel in the nightmare world. Having realized what Sleep has done to him, he decides to enact his revenge. He now has control of nightmares as he is the god of that realm. He plays with his powers. Sleep (now having usurped his human body) must sleep so when she does, he hits her with everything he has—granting her the worst possible nightmares he can envision. 

In this track I think we see Sleep trying to cope with being more “human” and struggling with what she did to her lover. And between the guilt, and the nightmares where she sees Vessel appear like a ghost, and the time travel, part of her is starting to go a little crazy. 

Track 9) “DYWTYLM”

“Do you wish that you loved me?” is the question Vessel poses to Sleep each night when he haunts her in her dreams. I think this track is mostly about Sleep struggling with experiencing human emotions. 

Now, she’s still a god in some respects, she still has powers but now she is more human than she’s ever been, and she is forced to endure what that’s like. She is suffering a mental break and is starting to regret what she’s done. When she looks at herself in the mirror, she can’t get her reflection to smile back at her. Vessel’s nightmares are getting to her, and she is starting to become paranoid that Vessel is somehow taking back control of his body.

Track 10) “Rain”

This track is Sleep wishing for Vessel’s forgiveness. Again, we see how the tables have turned, and we now see Sleep on her knees begging for Vessel to take her back. She finally sees what it’s like to be in love in only the way humans can. She wishes to undo everything that’s happened between them. 

Track 11) “Take Me Back to Eden”

Vessel hears Sleep’s plea for forgiveness. He was just starting to get used to this god thing and is getting off on the power he has, but he is still deeply, deeply in love with her. 

Sleeps asks for him to take her back and he eventually agrees. Since he is the god in charge of the nightmare realm it must be him that goes about undoing things. 

He works some kind of sorcery or science or whatever and everything gets reversed. We jump back in time, but things go a little screwy when you mess with time travel. Briefly we end up way before Vessel ever met Sleep and he was living a regular 9-5 life and dealing with depression. 

We then jump to where we were in track one on this album “Chokehold” where Vessel had just arrived in the nightmare world. 

Track 12) “Euclid”

We continue to jump through time, going back to “When the Bough breaks” from their very first EP. (This was Vessel’s incubation period, right before he was reborn as Sleep’s Vessel.) 

We are then thrown into “The night does not belong to god” which is the first track off their first full album Sundowning and where Vessel first began teaching others to worship through the band Sleep Token.

And This is where the time stabilizes. 

Vessel, now back in his disembodied human form, is reeling from the snap back and forth in time and body hopping. 

He takes some time to reflect on all that has happened. He has now seen a few years into the future and knows how things play out between him and Sleep. He is still hopelessly in love with her but now he knows that in the end, try as he might, she will never truly be his. And he must live with this knowledge and make peace with it. 

This whole experience has shifted things inside Vessel, and he takes time to mourn the death of this idea of what he wanted things to be between him and Sleep. He realizes it was a fantasy, one that is dead and now needs to be laid to rest. He accepts that he is in love with someone who will always be just out of reach. This seems a tragic destiny but one that he takes on with pleasure.

Even in Arcadia: Sleep Token Lore Explained

Vessel and Sleep’s love story has gone through many trials and tribulations. 

Last left off in TMBTE with Vessel accepting that Sleep will never really love him the way he wants. He continues on serving her with a broken heart. 

**What follows is my personal interpretation of the album Even in Arcadia. 

Even in Arcadia begins a new chapter where Sleep takes Vessel on a journey to another realm. Sleep has the power to view other worlds—in the reality where there are infinite alternate universes, Sleep discovers one that intrigues her. She has been keeping her eye on it and becomes somewhat infatuated with this world called Arcadia. 

She has been slowly growing bitter about the world we live in as she and Vessel have been working hard to gather followers to bring Sleep into the Earthly world and a fully living and breathing deity. 

However progress has been slow, and it’s only made worse by the strain in the relationship between her and Vessel. The urge to travel to this exotic land of Arcadia is growing more and more appealing. 

Meanwhile Vessel is feeling beaten down, growing resentment toward Sleep and her poor treatment of him. He’s been going through some dark days. 

Sleep approaches him with the proposing: Go with her to experience Arcadia. Vessel jumps at the idea to disappear from his reality for a while and go on an adventure. 

However, Sleep warns that when they enter Arcadia, she won’t have control of where exactly they end up when they get there. They will be separated AND neither of them will have any memory of who they were before. They will arrive as blank slates and will have to see if they can find each other in this other world without the aid of their memories. 

Vessel agrees to go on the journey as it’s the ultimate test to their love: either they will find each other and fall in love all over again, or he will finally be free of her once and for all. 

Arcadia is this gorgeous world filled with beautiful palaces and the jagged gray rocks broken up by delicate Arcadia flowers bursting up through the stones. 

The world has been at war since the beginning of their history. Two houses war for control of the land: House Veridian and The Feathered Host. 

Two races of Arcadians exist: Veridians and Feathered. At one time both races wielded magic but the magic has long since died out. 

There is a prophecy, however, that promises the return of their magic belongs to the Hero who will end the war between the factions once and for all. Of course, both races believe the prophesy speaks to their own race obtaining Hero and conquering the other. 

House Veridian is a warrior society (imagine the Spartans). Veridians are the bigger and physically stronger race. They live for war. After their ancestors where once enslaved by the Feathered, newer generations have sworn to wipe the Feathered from the face of Arcadia. 

Feathered Host (imagine Atlanteans) what they lack in brawn they make up for in brains. They are incredibly smart and have created technology to take the place of their dying magic. Oh, and they’re originally born with wings. However, over centuries of war, many of their wings were cut off by the Veridians to the point where children began being born without wings. Now, only the nobles and royals have wings. 

Track 1) “Look to Windward”

Vessel arrives in Arcadia and washes up on the shore. He is alone and totally lost, doesn’t know who he is, where he is, or how he got there. He is nearly dead, having almost drowned when he arrived. 

He is soon found by a Veridian woman who saw him fall from the sky and crash into the ocean. She drags him from the shore and nurses him back to health. Word soon spreads of a stranger who fell from the sky who doesn’t look like a Veridian or a Feathered.

Track 2) “Emergence”

By the time Vessel wakes up from his near-death experience, he is at the castle of House Veridian, and he is told he is the prophesized Hero come to rid Arcadia of the evil Feathered Host. 

Vessel is overwhelmed by this idea that he is some savior to these people. He doesn’t even know who they are or who he even is. He rejects the chosen one status while he gains his bearings. 

He finds out the woman who saved him from the shore and nursed him back to health is actually the Veridian princess. She begins showing him around the kingdom and introducing him to her people and their way of life. 

Vessel begins to settle into life with the Veridians and begins falling for the princess. 

The princess encourages him to seize his destiny as the prophesized hero. However, he feels he can’t accept this role until he knows who he was before he fell into the ocean. 

Track 3) “Past Self” 

To help Vessel learn who he was, the Veridian Princess takes him to the seer. The seer offers him a glimpse of who he was before he came to Arcadia. Though he only gains a glimpse, he doesn’t like what he sees. He sees darkness, pain, blood… and at the end of the vision he gains a whisper of a memory about the promise of love and someone he was supposed to find. 

The cryptic knowledge of his dark past life scares him. But Inspired by this new idea of love needed to be found, he decides to take the plunge with the princess and confess his feelings for her. 

She returns his love and at her urging, he eventually decides to embrace his role as the prophesied Hero. 

Vessel and the Princess, along with the help of the rest of the Veridian nobles, begin conducting their plans to decimate Feathered Host. 

Their plan is to send Vessel in to the Feathered capital as a spy. They’ll make him look like a Feathered Noble and pass him off as the Feathered prophesied hero. Once he has established himself there, he will take down the city’s defenses and let the army of Veridians in to conquer. 

Track 4) “Dangerous”

Vessel gets swept up in working toward the plan to defeat the feathered. He and the princess have hit it off and he feels he loves her; however, he keeps seeing this woman in his dreams. She’s this beautiful dangerous thing. And he’s completely captivated by her. 

The thing that disturbs him about the dream is the woman is a Feathered. He decides to ignore the dreams and chalks it up to nerves about the upcoming plan. 

Track 5) “Caramel”

Vessel’s disguise is ready: it’s an elaborate farce complete with fake wings that he is able to move enough to look convincing. 

With preparations complete, he says a heavy-hearted goodbye for now to the princess and travels to the Feathered Host kingdom. 

Vessel is extremely nervous. If his disguise fails or if he is found out as the Veridian Hero, he will be executed in an instant. 

On his way to Feathered Host, he begins gathering followers. As planned, the Veridians spread rumors of the arrival of the Feathered Hero and word has spread to the Feathered lands. 

Along the way, every Feathered person he passes wants to see him, touch him, talk to him. People fall on their knees before him, and he can’t help but feel like a traitor when he sees the zealous love and adoration in the eyes of the Feathered people who look to him as their savoir. The people treat him like a god, which is far different than the way the Verdians treated him more like a great weapon.  

At the same time, he is terrified of being found out. Day after day passes and he grows more and more worried that he will be caught and killed. 

The only thing keeping him sane are his dreams where he sees the dangerous feathered woman. She doesn’t speak on the dreams, but she somehow offered his strength. He latches onto the image of her as he nears the Feathered capital. 

Track 6) “Even in Arcadia”

Vessel reaches the Feathered Host kingdom and has amassed a huge following that have come along with him. The gates to the kingdom swing wide at his arrival and welcome him and his entourage of dedicated followers. 

Vessel is taken to the palace where he stands before the Feathered king and queen—he locks eyes with the queen for the first time and discovers she is the one from his dreams.  

She meets his eye and there is a moment of unspoken understanding that passes between them, like she’s seen him in her dreams as well and she’s been waiting him to arrive. 

Track 7) “Provider”

After all the parades and politics of the Feathered hero’s arrival has finished, Vessel is showed to his rooms in the palace. 

And it’s no surprise when the queen comes knocking on his door that night. Vessel keeps his disguise on and the two talk. He learns she is a new queen only having married the king a few months ago. She has a similar story to his, she woke up in a field of flowers one day and has no memory of who she was or where she came from before. 

Vessel knows it’s dangerous for him to risk discovery by continuing to see her, but he can’t help it. He can’t seem to keep away from her and it doesn’t take long before they become lovers, and Vessel realizes he is in love with her–he fell in love with her at the first sight of her the first time he dreamed of her. 

Track 8) “Damocles”

And now he’s really in a pickle. He’s fallen for the enemy and the queen at that.

He’s accomplished infiltrating the royal Feathered court, they embrace him as their savior—but what would happen if the queen found out who he really is and what his plans are? 

He’s afraid that at any second he’s going to be caught either in his affair with the queen or with his subterfuge. 

As the days drag on he begins doubting if he should even go through with his plan to destroy the Feathered. He fell in love with the Veridians because he spent months with them learning their culture and being accepted by them. But the Feathered are nothing like the villains the Veridians made them out to be. 

Time is running short. The Veridian army will be there soon, and he is supposed to put down the city’s defenses for the attack.  

In a moment of vulnerability with the queen he decides to bare himself to her and let his disguise drop. She stares at him in shock, and he waits for the proverbial sword to drop. 

Track 9) “Gethsemane”

Vessel explains who he is and what his plans were with the Veridians. He goes on to explain it doesn’t have to be this way, it doesn’t have to be Feathered or Veridians, he proposes they turn their backs on both and just run away together. 

The queen reluctantly agrees, and they make plans to meet in the gardens outside the palace and make their escape the following night. 

Vessel shows up at the gardens but instead of the queen he finds the king’s guards waiting for him. They rip away his disguise and put him in chains. As he is dragged away, he catches a glimpse of the queen, and her face is all he needs to see to know she betrayed him. 

Track 10) “Infinite Baths” 

In the Feathered kingdom, traitors are crucified. Vessel knows he’ll soon meet his execution. He knows The Veridian army is waiting just outside the city, but without his signal and ability to fall the city’s defenses, there’s no chance of them saving him in time. 

Awaiting his fate in the dungeons, a mysterious gift arrives, a small vial with a note asking him for one last dream. No secret, it’s from the queen. He hopes maybe it’s something that will help him escapes—maybe she hasn’t betrayed him after all. He drinks the vial and realizes it was a drug. His heart shatters as he realizes it’s not an instrument to aid in escape; it’s a way to make his torture and execution bearable. 

He falls into a calm, drugged state as he is taken and cleansed for his execution. They bathe him and he spirals out dreaming of the queen, he sees Arcadia with a new appreciation for the beauty as he goes willingly to his execution…

However, a side effect of the potion he took combined with the pain of the torture caused him to unlock a hidden magical power within him—the kind of magic that used to flow through arcadians in ancient times. Just as the executioner’s blade is about to fall, Vessel stands up, dark magic breaks out of him as he seizes hold of the power becoming the prophesied hero. 

And here we are left on that cliff hanger—not knowing if Vessel will live or die, not knowing if he will fight for house Veridian or Feathered Host and not knowing if the queen knew the drug would reveal the magic within him or if that was a coincidence.