Nearly two years on from the release of Take Me Back To Eden, Sleep Token return with a cryptic message, likely teasing new music before their Download headline in June. The band have launched an ARG of sorts, with a new website featuring a series of letters, scrambled randomly. Putting them into the correct order (D O U O S V A V V M) brings up a textbox for one to input their email, which subsequently sorts the user into one of two ‘houses:’ Arcadia (‘Feathered Hosts’) and Veridian, with the heading, “Behold, A Divide.” Follow-up emails for the two read “The cycle must end” and “The house must endure” respectively, perhaps hinting at a war between factions over Sleep’s continued dominion. The quill/feather and crossed swords which make up the respective logos could represent different philosophies, calling to the famous idiom that ‘the pen is mightier than the sword.’
D O U O S V A V V M is a sequence of letters, known as the Shugborough inscription, from the eighteenth-century Shepherd’s Monument in Staffordshire, an uncracked ciphertext which was speculated to be connected to the Holy Grail – mentioned on the group’s song “Ascensionism”. Further, the source code for the website reveals coordinates for the Shugborough Estate (52°48’05.0″N 2°00’45.0″W), as well as ASCII art of the monument itself. The monument features the word Arcadia (Et in arcadia ego), which was the pre-sale code for the band’s most recent UK tour, and Veridian was also previously used as the pre-sale code for the show supporting Linkin Park.
As of February 26, new private Instagram profiles have also arisen, @featheredhost and @houseveridian respectively, which were distributed by email. The pages feature different sheet music beneath the Sleep Token logo as masthead, most likely referring to forthcoming songs (with optimistic rumours abound of a double album). As for when, March 13th seems to be probable, as the official TikTok page posted pictures of the third and thirteen measures; the words septuagesimus and secundus, Latin for seventy and two, are hidden at these marks of the sheet music when downloaded directly from Instagram. March 13th is 13.03, the 72nd day of 2025, and a Thursday (ahead of the upcoming blood moon, no less), which was the predominant release day for the group’s singles during the Sundowning and Take Me Back To Eden release cycles.
07/03 UPDATE: A pre-save for new music has gone live. The @featheredhost and @houseveridian accounts have also posted Morse Code coordinates (34.11674 N 118.29751 W; 34.11737 N, 118.29836 W) in the vicinity of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, which the group’s photographer, Adamrossi, posted pictures of last year. QR codes at the locations revealed two image assets, within folders called “Blood” and “Moon” respectively, which together form one artwork. The file names for both are identical (513518751435), proving to be an A1Z26 cipher which reads “Emergence,” most likely the upcoming single. In the Teeth of God graphic novel, The Director begins his letters by dating them by their distance from the ’emergence of the lunar anomaly.’ This is significant on several fronts: the track title; the near-certain release of the song on March 13th, when the blood moon will be visible in the U.S.; and the album artwork for Take Me Back To Eden, which clearly illustrates an eldritch creature emerging from the moon.
Download 2025 is also likely to be a key event, as there are rumours connecting them with a to-date-unknown band President, who were announced for the festival with a clearly Sleep Token-adjacent message: “At Download Festival, the inauguration begins.” There is certainly merit to the speculation: The group’s Facebook page is managed by Future History Management, who also manage Sleep Token, and their website points to Allotment Productions, who regularly produce designs and merch for the masked collective.
It remains unclear exactly what the British quartet have in the chamber, but an exciting 2025 is certainly ahead, and it seems that a fresh wave of lore is upon us.