The rollout for Sleep Token‘s fourth studio album has been an interesting one, featuring various ARGs over the course of the last couple of months. These included QR codes found at locations around the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles ahead of the ‘surprise’ release of “Emergence” on March 13th, alongside the unveiling of Even In Arcadia and an extensive U.S. tour.
Everything from billboards to geocaches have been utilised, and the latest addition to this ongoing labyrinth came via Spotify itself; the video canvases for “Emergence” and “Caramel” were updated to flash different sets of letters, referring to the first and second halves of the tracklist respectively. When aggregated, including missing letters posted to the Instagram story of the official Spotify account, all ten tracks of the release were spelled out.
The full tracklist for Even In Arcadia is:
- Look To Windward [7:46]
- Emergence [6:26]
- Past Self [3:34]
- Dangerous [4:11]
- Caramel [4:50]
- Even In Arcadia [4:28]
- Provider [6:05]
- Damocles [4:24]
- Gethsemane [6:23]
- Infinite Baths [8:23]
Judging by random capitalisation in a recent interview with RCA executive Aaron Stern, Damocles is the most likely candidate for a final single before the album releases early next month. The premiere for “Caramel” also spelled Damocles when the logos for Feathered Hosts and House Veridian were transcribed as binary, with a sigil of a hovering sword, clearly in the style of the single artworks, being flashed for a frame before it began.
In the meantime, the titles are sure to inspire a cacophony of speculation, particularly with the passing continuance to Greek and Christian iconography which has so far proved integral to the rollout. “Damocles” of course refers to the Sword of Damocles, “Gethsemane” will in some ways be seen as a callback to Two‘s “Nazareth“, and “Infinite Baths“, one of the strangest Sleep Token titles to date, feels more akin to a Deftones appellation.
Fresh off the back of “Caramel“, which saw Vessel break the fourth wall for the first time and address the harmful nature of parasocialism, and with an upcoming Download headline slot in the summer, fans are sure to be waiting with bated breath.
Even In Arcadia will release on May 9th via RCA Records, and you can pre-order it here.