Sleep Token’s debut EP, One, released on March 21, 2016, marked the beginning of a musical journey that would invite listeners in with its unique blend of progressive metal, post-rock, and atmospheric sounds. Featuring just three tracks—Thread the Needle, Fields of Elation, and When the Bough Breaks—the EP showcases the band’s ability to seamlessly combine delicate, ethereal vocals with heavy, intense instrumentals. Lyrically, One explores deep themes of love, loss, and emotional struggle, set against a backdrop of haunting metaphors and vivid imagery. This EP plays as a prologue to its three-part album story. It gives a glimpse of lyrical and musical themes to the listener, and foreshadows what is to come.
Section Menu
Overview
Musical Overview
Musically, this band is talented at every aspect. Every musician is amazing at what they do. The music they create is parallel to the themes that the lyrics are about. They blend haunting and inviting, violent and peaceful, anguish with bliss. The music is heavy and soft. That is very true for this EP. The vocals are higher pitched and have this reverb on them that creates a sort of ethereal sound to them. There are sections of simple pianos, to a fury of djenty guitars and powerful drums with no vocals.
They lean into a specific musical style that I love, and not too many contemporary bands lean into this style. That style is best described like a firework show. It starts slowly, with just one or two fireworks lighting up the sky. You can pick out the individual colors, the type of explosion, the pattern or scatter, and even the sounds each firework makes. These details are easy to notice because only one firework goes off at a time. Then, another one follows, and then another. Each firework has a similar structure, but with different elements—different colors, sounds, patterns, and effects. At first, this might seem dull compared to the grand finale, but it’s the solo pieces that set the stage for the climax, both musically and in this firework analogy.
As the show continues, fireworks begin to shoot off all at once. You notice that the colors are paired with specific sounds, and the patterns in the air follow certain rhythms. You can focus on the ones you enjoy the most, something you could only do earlier when each firework was by itself. The beauty of the show comes from how all these individual fireworks, each a unique piece, come together to create something spectacular. You know what to expect because you’ve already seen some go off, but it’s the harmony of all the pieces together that really steals the show. It wouldn’t have been as powerful without the slow build-up and the individual fireworks shown earlier.
Finally, there’s the quiet between the bursts of color—the moments of darkness where no fireworks are exploding. In this absence, the true beauty of the show is revealed. Without the darkness, the fireworks wouldn’t stand out or shine the way they do. Just as silence in music amplifies the sound, the darkness between the fireworks makes their brilliance more striking.
Lyrical Overview
Then there are the lyrics. The lyrics are painful and emotional and are ridden with beautiful and haunting metaphors and images. Just from a lyric standpoint, I would read them all the time. They are poetry dripping with agony, misery and beauty. The metaphors and images make it unique and not so in your face. This topic has been covered time and time again and will be many times in the future. However, it is the way that it is written that evokes such a strong feeling. I might be biased because I relate to them perfectly. It was as if someone wrote these lyrics with my story and experiences in mind. They are so specific yet broad enough to have a listener like me relate and put my own spin on someone else’s words.
Track Breakdown
Thread The Needle
It’s mainly isolated vocals to start this almost haunting yet inviting first song. Even in the first minute of their very first track there is so much there that the band does well. They are patient and let each moment of their song’s breathe on their own. They let the vocals start and invite you in. Then they add more piano, slowly getting louder. There are some synths that overlap and start to layer into a song. However, they don’t jam everything at once but let what needs to be at the front be front and center.
The music takes a heavy and sudden turn with guitars and their djenty riffs, drums and a backing bassline. The instruments play, but then they go back to the vocals and minimalistic instruments as well. This band, even from their first track, shows that if they want the lyrics and the vocals to shine, they will, just like if they want the music to have the same result. There is a specific place for everything, and the music isn’t trying to outplay the vocals or drown out the lyrics. And on the flip side, the vocals aren’t covering up the instruments. These sections, while not always as cut and dry as this song, are huge into what Sleep Token does so well.
For a six and a half minute long song, there aren’t many lyrics. In simple terms, it’s almost a persuasion or request from the lead singer, Vessel. He asks the person he is talking to, to spend a night with him. While on the surface, it could seem like a simple one-night stand request filled with lust and sex, I think that’s only part of the story. It is more about the intertwining of two people, the entangling of two souls.
Lyric Analysis
“Bury me inside this
Labyrinth bed
We can feel that time is
Dilated
Something to confide in
Something to erase
Just look at where we’re lying
An invisible space”
These are the only two sections of lyrics that aren’t repeated. I think the “something to confide in” and “something to erase” are the most important lyrics in this song. This is the true meaning or the motive behind wanting to spend this night with her. It is this blend of trusting someone new, while forgetting about the past that is truly the goal of Vessel. There is this “Labyrinth Bed” (I love that metaphor/image) that alludes to confusion and this impossible escape. However, this night that he wants with her, will help escape his confusion, or at least help him escape for just the night. The simple and few lyrics still tell a powerful story and sets the groundwork for this narrative. It won’t be told in this EP, or even the next. But it will be told in their trilogy of albums following this. This is just the first track of the Prologue.
Fields of Elation
In understanding the song, its important to note that ‘Elation’ is defined as “a great happiness or exhilaration.”
Out of the three tracks, this one is my least favorite. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, I just think the other two songs do the same thing, but better. The introduction and ending are both better than a bridge between the two. That’s what this song feels like. It plays like a mix of the first and second track, while not having much of its own identity. To me, it sounds like a worse version of the first, mixed with elements of the third track. Having this song in-between two better songs also doesn’t help do this song justice, musically. It is outshined by the song before and after. However, it still is good, just not as good. For me though, the lyrics are the shining spot of this track.
Lyric Analysis
I do really like the lyrics of this track. It’s a unique topic that I relate to, and maybe that’s why I like the lyrics so much. It’s a very conflicting message, but this is how I read it. This “Field of Elation” is this person Vessel has mentioned in the first track. He is in this deep depression, and it reads that the only person to “pull [him] out” is her. He is in this dark place, and he parallels her to this image of a ‘Field of Elation.” He is pulled out of depression and into this quiet and rich area, that he can only be taken there by her.
However, she isn’t perfect. He claims she is a sin that he partakes in as often as he breathes. This ambiguousness leaves the listener wanting to know more about the character he is referring to. It isn’t black and white. It is very grey, as she can be this cure for his depression, but she has her own vices and sins that come along with her.
The last lyric is my favorite, the one that is repeated four times “I’m losing faith in our lives apart.” This paints the picture of a couple that is no longer together. There is some back and forth every now and then even after the relationship, but it is few and fleeting. The lead singer is now saying that he can’t get out of this depression that he is when he is not with her, and with that, the hope that he can be ok on his own. So, few words in this song but they hold so much weight and meaning. I love the images, metaphors and word choices.
When The Bough Breaks
Diving into the idea of a “Bough”
For those that don’t know (myself prior to looking it up included) a “bough” is a main branch of a tree. This fits with the album cover.
Another word for a branch is a limb. This is brought up heavily in the trilogy that hasn’t been written yet at the time of this EP’s release. A human limb is an arm. Arms are a huge theme in the trilogy, as it is what embraces his love but also where he decides to hurt himself. This rich theme and symbol being tied to the first EP and running parallel to a tree limb or “bough” is truly magnificent writing.
This is my favorite song of the three. The lyrics, the music, everything about this track is far above the first two songs.
We get the same pattern, but in a different sound than the first two. The isolated vocals start the song, but it sounds more, breathy, more echoey, almost ghost or ethereal like. It sounds like a one man choir singing in an abandoned cathedral.
The simple guitar notes take their time playing. Even when there are moments of silence, there is no rush. What I said previously about the first song, how each part of the band almost has its own section, and they aren’t afraid of silence or long buildups, remains true for this song. If anything, it is relevant for this track. The slow build, letting each instrument get their spotlight, and then they start to overlap. They start to harmonize with each other. The once isolated vocals play as an instrument with repeated words, like a chant, rather than the previous “story-telling” manor. The words still carry weight and meaning, but the repetition seems like it is more of a tool to hear rather than to listen to the words. It also is quieter so harder to understand, and lets every aspect come together rather than one having center stage.
Then, there is this heavy guitar solo that does take front and center. The vocals fade out, and we are lost in this almost frenzied, slightly angry and emotional guitar solo. Breaks are filled with strings but ultimately goes back to the guitar. And on the flip side of the start of the song where it was isolated vocals, there are just instrumentals.
Lyric Analysis
The first section of lyrics is the narrator trying to convince his former lover to stay with him. He knows they broke up, that the main branch of their tree has broken off. However, he insists that they can still love each other and be together. They can find peace and solace in the freefall of the branch falling. What a beautiful metaphor. This is one of the best images I’ve read or heard in a song. It is unique, powerful and gorgeous. I want to get a tattoo of this album cover because I love this image, but I don’t want to always have the meaning to which I tie this song to personally on me forever.
He knows that when the branch is done falling and hits the ground it will end violently. Just like their relationship. However, he himself embraces that fate, and tries to convince her of the same. It’s a love he would die for and has expressed in the previous song that he needs it. No point of living without it, so if death will come anyways, why not come while he is in this “Field of Elation” instead of his dark and depressed world.
There is a pause and a build and switch in music. Then, more emotional and powerful lyrics come around.
“Everything we touch turns water into blood
You try to look away from even when the bough breaks
You don’t really love, you just hate to be alone
You hate to be alone
You hate to be alone”
This entire section is repeated four times. So are many of this bands lyrics, in this EP and in all of their work. I wonder if that number is significant or just fits musically the best. Ither way, something worth noting.
The idea of them as a couple turning life and love into something violent and dangerous is first. So simply said, yet the metaphor is so beautiful. Then the idea of the “Bough” breaking has a new meaning. A big chunk of their relationship has fallen off, yet it isn’t the entire tree that has fallen, just a big part of it. While he clings onto her trying to resolve this and move forward, even with the “Missing Limbs” of their tree, he wants to keep them together. However, she does not. She doesn’t want love, she just doesn’t want to be alone. Wow. I might be overreacting to these lyrics because they feel like they were written about my specific story and recent experiences, but wow.
Conclusion
Overall, this three-song EP is strong and underrated, especially for a band’s debut work. It has elements that are unique in this EP and not in their other work. It also lays the groundwork and baseline prologue for what is to come. What I really like is the difference from this EP to all of their other work. It is uniquely this EP. The lyrics, the instrumentation and the vocals are all “Sleep Token” but more specifically, this EP is distinguishably this EP and can only be found in these three songs. No two songs by this band are the exact same in any sense. They all tell their own part of a larger story, and musically share some patterns and elements, but it is unique.
About The Author
