The Needle Drops on Sleep Token

Anthony Fantano of the Needle Drop rated Sleep Token as one of his top 5 worst albums of the year. He gave it a 2 in his original review and called it metal for Disney adults, which is a fair take. Then the Guardian named it the worst album of the year. I can foresee the band getting dogpiled by critics. There are positives and negatives to this. I have said a lot about this; most recently, they came up in my piece on the industry plant theory. This is going to be my last entry on here about them until they put out a new album. 2027 would be the most likely album cycle, and by then, some of the hype will have waned. But the problem is not Sleep Token's new album. It scored well here and took the number 4 spot on the top 10 Pop albums of 2025 list. So if your expectations are for a metal album, it will fail to meet those; if you uare expecting a pop album it will meet those. I think it's a great pop album.

However, I support any kind of quality control that arises, as it is desperately needed. Critics have pandered to the industry's sacred cows for too long and are not speaking up when the emperor wears no clothes. But this kind of energy needs to be directed at more deserving targets like Baby Metal, Ghost, the Hu, Blackbraid, and many other acts that are working off a gimmick. To some extent, Castle Rat is slipping under the radar here, as they are just doing a great job at ripping off Rainbow and creating traditional metal. Would they be as noted without their gimmick?

There are a ton of acts that slip by due to the press wanting to be inclusive. If a band is not your typical white male heshers, then they are getting industry points. There are plenty of great bands with female members, and it's nothing new: Fear of God, the Gathering, White Zombie, Bolt Thrower, Sigh, Kylesa, etc. It should not even be a focal point of the conversation; writing good music is all that matters. If you want to dress like spooky things, fine, but have the music to back it up. When any band uses this to thrust themselves into the spotlight, there is going to be a cost to be paid at some point in time. In 2025, this is just an issue of marketing.

To be honest, I am surprised more of these gimmick-heavy bands are not being called out. I think most critics are trying to earn clout in the industry and just play nice, not to ruffle the feathers of someone they are going to need to give them promos, but they need us more than we need them, and it's a diserve to your brand to not call it like it is. So I support not playing nice, but speaking a blunt truth when needed, since that is what I do here. 

Critics only began regarding metal as hip over the past 15 years. When nu-metal, hair-metal, and even death metal were at their peaks, they were seen as being contrived. In some cases, they were right, then bands like Deftones proved themselves more capable, and success was the best revenge, which is how it should be. Metal is for outsiders, not to be adored by critics. Typically, music snobs leaned in the direction of punk rock, and anything prog or metal was pretentious. Sometimes this is fair, as sometimes it is. King Diamond was at one time reviled. The same can be said of Slayer, Type O Negative, and Black Sabbath. It was not for the cool kids, but things change. At the end of the day, good pop music is good pop music; it's not good metal, so it's the cup by which we measure these things. But if it tightens the reins at forces substance over style, I support it. 

pst659