It’s time to reflect on the year in music! This month, we’ll be highlighting Jam of Today’s favourite albums of 2025. Working our way up to the #1 album, which will be revealed on the 31st of December, we’ll go one by one past this year’s favourites. Today, our #8: ‘Even In Arcadia‘ by Sleep Token.

As soon as Sleep Token releases new music, I’m always making sure to be right on top of it and chances are quite likely I would instantly feature it here on the blog, too. Yet, when the masked metal band released their first few singles ahead of their fourth album ‘Even In Arcadia’ this year, I couldn’t help but temper my expectations for that forthcoming album a bit. Much to everyone’s surprise, I didn’t take that big of a liking to these new songs. And that in itself was quite rare to say the least.

I’m sure you are aware of how much I enjoy listening to Sleep Token. As of today, I’ve highlighted this band plenty of times on Jam of Today and I’m sure some of their songs are amongst my most listened to songs of the decade. ‘Even In Arcadia’, however, is a different story. My first playthrough didn’t quite fill me with all too much joy and other than the singles I’d heard before, I initially thought the majority of this album was actually pretty forgettable. It clearly redeemed itself – hence the very respectable #8 spot in my End of Year list – but properly liking this album took me quite some time.

Over the years, Sleep Token have shown to be the absolute hot to go pop metal act of the moment. Their previous album ‘Take Me Back To Eden’ meant a massive mainstream breakthrough after debut ‘Sundowning’ (2019) and ‘This Place Will Become Your Tomb’ (2021) got themselves respected by the more trusted metal fans, too. The unorthodox blend of pop, R&B, and metal has brought Sleep Token to where they are now but on their latest, the hit-or-miss ratio is bigger than ever.

It you look at the amount of genres blended into ‘Even In Arcadia’, it’s no surprise we have to swallow a poor song here and there: Alternative Pop, Djent, EDM Trap, Trap Soul, Alternative Metal, all have been mentioned in reviews for this record. It’s almost like Vessel searched for a genre randomiser on the internet and tried blending 10 different ones together into a singular piece of content. It makes it more understandable as to why it took me a hot minute to battle my way through this album. Some absolutely phenomenal songs (opener ‘Look To Windward’ follow-up ‘Emergence’, and ender ‘Infinite Baths’) alternate with borderline abysmal ones (mainly by ways of ‘Provider’), meaning this album jumps from amazing highs to disappointing lows which makes it so difficult to craft an opinion right from the start. It’s never felt more unclear as to what direction Sleep Token is heading.

Still, I did manage to take a liking to this album. Or, perhaps, due to all the above. I’ve been listening to this album a lot this year since I really did want to like it and I feel like I pretty well succeeded in doing so. Most songs have grown on me a serious lot since first listening to it and additionally, having spun this record at the right times during this year has made a positive impact, too. Perhaps it’s quite fitting one of my favourite songs on this record is its title track, arguably one of the most out of place tunes on the entire album. I’ve been on the Sleep Token ride for many years now and I should probably count myself lucky for that. If this would’ve been my first introduction to the group, I’m not sure if I would be as forgiving as I have been now. For now, I’ll happily stick around for a bit longer.