On Wednesday, Oct. 8, the cloaked Brits in Sleep Token brought their Even in Arcadia tour through Portland, Oregon, delivering a surprisingly heavy set that was an impressively relentless spectacle to behold, and behold I did.
First things first, I feel it necessary to address the opening act, Thornhill, from Melbourne, Australia. I was barely familiar with these guys before the show, but I was absolutely fascinated by their ability to captivate the crowd and hold very tightly onto each person in the arena. I can’t tell you the last time I’ve seen an opening band command the kind of attention they did.
Shortly after 9 p.m. (PT), Sleep Token took the stage to kick things off with “Look to Windward,” the first track on their acclaimed 2025 album, Even in Arcadia, which the sold-out tour is named after.
The tour stage set is remarkable. The band plays inside of, and in front of, a stone temple that plays into the lore they’ve created around their music and masked personas. Something that stood out was the inclusion of a trio of female singers dressed like sirens of the occult, providing backup vocals from the top of the faux rock formation.
Over the next hour and a half, the band rolled through the majority of the songs on their new album, including hits such as “Caramel” and “Damocles,” as well as fan-favorites from their previous albums: “The Summoning,” “Alkaline,” “Thread the Needle,” and more.
A couple of times, they brought out a saxophonist to perform with them, like on the song “Aqua Regia,” from their 2024 album Take Me Back to Eden. The balance of these slower, jazzier moments does a lot to highlight, and please excuse my French here, how goddamn heavy Sleep Token really is.
I think that people just don’t understand, or refuse to acknowledge it out of arbitrary spite, but there is a heavy-ass forest beyond those pop-tinged and trap beat trees. Specifically, seeing the band play these songs live really solidified for me just how much djent they incorporate into their songwriting.
There are instrumental moments in songs like “Vore” and “Emergence” that I’m convinced were inspired by Meshuggah (not to mention the full-on black-metal-blastbeat-breakdown in “Caramel”), and in their live set, they have the space to really accentuate those sections of the songs, making for a mesmerizingly heavy experience.
It’s also incredible that enigmatic frontman Vessel has been able to take such great care of his voice across more than a dozen shows in less than a month. There were certainly times it was noticeable that he’s been pushing himself, but for him to still be performing at, like, 98 percent on their 15th show of a fairly short tour… that’s just fucking admirable.
The Even in Arcadia tour wraps up its North American run with two final shows in California this week: 10/10 at the Oakland Arena in Oakland and 10/11 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. If you already have tickets for either of these shows, you can expect a truly otherworldly experience.
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