(The title stands for “Do You Wish That You Loved Me?” but it’s always written as an initialism without the punctuation mark.)
About a year ago, my wife was recommended Sleep Token by her sister, which was odd, because she and her sister don’t usually share favourite bands. My wife’s more rock and metal, and her sister’s more pop and country. So we both added their newest album, Even in Arcadia. My wife liked it. I didn’t. So I waited for my wife to “get over” Sleep Token and move on. She didn’t. I decided to try another approach. I started with their first album, Sundowning and worked forward. She worked backward. Take Me Back to Eden, their second-most recent release, is her favourite. I think it’s mine, too, but I like the first two more than Arcadia where my wife prefers the two newer ones.
I read a YouTube comment on a Sleep Token song that said something like “do you ever stop and realise you listen to peak music?” I find that Tool fans feel the same way. And there’s a similarity here. Both play strange sounding prog rock that isn’t quite prog, and has some electronic influence, and is just weird all-around. I thought there was some mystery as to what the guys in Tool looked like (at first; we know now) but I’m not sure.
With Sleep Token, that’s part of the mystery. The singer is only known to fans as ‘Vessel’, and the drummer is known as ‘II’ (Roman numeral for 2). They play with other musicians, but the band consists of those two officially. We don’t know their names. Vessel and II are often seen in blackface, but they appear to be Caucasian under the face paint (kind of like Blue Man Group, but black instead of blue). They wear elaborate costumes as well. They look like a kind of Satanic cult (but they aren’t). Their ‘story’ as I understand it, is that they worship a god called “Sleep” and their songs are affirmations of faith to this deity. Oh, and their videos are all super weird.
Specific to this song, there’s a lot to take in here. Normally when I pick a song, I go to YouTube and let it play as I write it up. This time, I went to YouTube for the link, but I have the song looping on my AirPods. Apple Music doesn’t say Atmos, but it feels like it’s in some kind of surround. I’m not sure. It starts with this weird, alien sounding percussion that may or may not be electronic. The singing is more chanted than sang, which is their typical style. It’s somewhat hypnotic, and gives the listener the feeling that they’re being preached to, though it’s formatted more like a love song. Then you get this new sound added in, which feels like it might be taken from 70s or 80s music, almost like a female voice wailing, through a distortion field.
You don’t really listen to a Sleep Token song, you experience it.
Sleep Token isn’t my favourite band. They are currently my wife’s, though. The point is — think about the last time someone recommended you a band that became your favourite. For me, I typically discover these bands on my own. Looking back at the previous SotD, Nightwish became one of my favourite bands. Maybe at one point they were my favourite. They’re still up there, maybe top ten, but they’ve fallen a bit since. I discovered most of my favourites on my own. Many of which I’ve shared. A few I still haven’t.