LIVE REVIEW: Sleep Token @ Lafayette, London
It happens often that the more reserved and mysterious a band is, the stronger the bond its audience have with it. In a short space of time, anonymous collective SLEEP TOKEN have captured the imagination of a dedicated crowd who feel deeply connected to their intimate music, and who, through their cryptic messages and ambiguous lyrics, piece together something which can without any irony be called ‘lore’. This following gathered amid the beautiful candle-lit brickwork of a sold-out Lafayette, where an intimate performance billed as ‘A Ritual from the Room Below’ took place after several forced postponements.
A disembodied AI-processed voice begins proceedings with a welcome message. “We are here to remember. We are here to forget. We are here to… worship” the voice states as it distorts further on the final word which has become a signature term for how SLEEP TOKEN fans commune with them. Vessel – the masked frontman synonymous with the band – comes out with a guitar over his shoulders, and begins a soft rendition of Hey Ya by OUTKAST, aptly omitting any mentions of polaroid pictures or lending some sugar (though the song Sugar comes later). His powerful, sensitive voice instantly fills the space and makes the hairs on the backs of necks stand. Accompanied by nothing other than three similarly bemasked backing singers, it becomes clear that what we are about to hear tonight is SLEEP TOKEN distilled to its pure essence – one man, his music, and his vulnerability.
After the hypnotic waltz of Missing Limbs comes the second cover of the night in Hallelujah, and the initial kneejerk reaction is to groan at how obvious a choice it is. That feeling disappears completely as soon as Vessel opens his mouth and delivers a harrowingly beautiful rendition (he sticks quite close to the JEFF BUCKLEY version). A female backing singer takes a verse, and the interplay of their voices is enough to make you forget you have ever heard this song sung by anyone else.
Following this early highlight, Vessel retreats to a piano which is conspicuously placed in such a way that the player would have to play with their back towards the stage. What happens next is unprecedented. The trio of backing singers surround Vessel and the room darkens. Moments later, a solitary ray of light strikes to illuminate Vessel’s mask, no longer on his face but neatly placed at the top of his keys. With his back towards the crowd and still enveloped in a pitch black hooded cloak, he begins to play – invisible, yet more naked than he has ever permitted to be seen.
A duo of two of SLEEP TOKEN’s biggest hits, The Night Does Not Belong To God and Alkaline, shows off his superb arrangement skills – the chug and djent of the originals are expertly transformed into fiery piano opuses, with all hooks and riffs still very recognisable. Though his back is turned to us, there are open lines of communication – the way his body hypnotically sways, how his neck approaches the microphone with a hunger.
When the voiceover eventually returns, it delivers another, even less expected twist – speech in the first person. Notorious for his wordless manner at all times other than while he is singing, Vessel has never addressed the audience directly before. In this recording, he reflects on a message he received from a fan which simply read “You saved me”. Vessel speaks of the impostor syndrome that makes him feel, confessing that all he is doing is allowing people “a small window into the emotional waiting room of my mind” whilst selfishly keeping hidden. A softer section of their set follows, with the lullaby-like Fall For Me a particular highlight – during which the crowd, which for the most part remains silent or subtly vocalises along, breaks into a cathartic scream for the line ‘Oh God, I wish you were here’.
The final voiceover of the night offers a rumination from Vessel that music is his only way to stumble onwards with the difficult task of finding greater self-acceptance. “I am nothing without this music. I am nothing without this mask” he mulls, before concluding: “I did not save anybody. You. Saved. Me.”, an impactful pause punctuating every word. This stunning confession brings about an audible collective gasp in the room, ringing in the opening chords of Blood Sport – the emotional highpoint of SLEEP TOKEN’s debut album Sundowning. In the vocalless sections of the song, Vessel can be heard quietly sobbing. It is a haunting, deeply affecting thing to witness, how an artist can channel his emotional being into the music and feel it with every fibre of his body – a body that may be fully concealed in cloth, mask and charcoal, but with a soul made barren.
Upon this emotional climax, Vessel replaces the mask on his face and sits up from the piano. He is finally safe to once more meet the audience’s gaze. Flanked by his choir as if they are there to catch him lest he collapse from this energy-draining performance, he offers a wordless goodbye with hands longingly extended towards the congregation. Among the crowd you can see people embracing their friends, drying their eyes, exchanging a nod with a stranger which says ‘This was special’. All we are left with is to exit into the London night and reflect on the transcendent experience we just had. Tonight, SLEEP TOKEN wrote a new chapter of their story, and everyone in the room can feel blessed to have been part of this stunning ritual.
Rating: 10/10
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