Sleep Token's 'Even in Arcadia' Album Debuts at No. 1 on Billboard 200 Chart

A English hard rock band that performs in masks and cloaks is not the type of artist that regularly visits the top of the Billboard 200

English hard rock band Sleep Token is not the type of artist that regularly visits the top of the Billboard 200 — yet anyone who had been paying attention to the group’s rise over the past few months knew that their fourth studio album, Even in Arcadia, was going to have a strong debut.

After years of building a fan base, expanding their lore and inching onto the Billboard charts with increasingly higher peaks, the group kicked off the year by scoring their first career Hot 100 entries, as well as quickly selling out a slew of fall arena dates. When Even in Arcadia was released on May 9, its album tracks flooded streaming charts, a clear sign that the early enthusiasm around the album had coalesced upon its release.

Still, even the most bullish Sleep Token fan had to be pleasantly surprised by the sheer magnitude of the album’s debut: Even in Arcadia arrived at No. 1 on the Billboard 200chart dated May 24 with 127,000 equivalent album units, according to Luminate — good enough to not only score Sleep Token’s biggest chart week ever, but the biggest total for a hard rock album in nearly two years, as well as the largest streaming week ever for a hard rock album. It’s the type of debut that blows away even the most hyped-up prognostications, and immediately makes Sleep Token one of the biggest stories in rock this year.

The performance of this album cycle has “by far” surpassed expectations, RCA Records COO John Fleckenstein tells Billboard. Sleep Token — who debuted nearly a decade ago and have always remained undercover of anonymity, with band members never revealing their identities or speaking to the press — signed with RCA in early 2024 following the release of third album Take Me Back to Eden. That album became the band’s first to hit the Billboard 200, debuting at No. 16 in May 2023, and produced some of its first songs to hit the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.

Yet when “Emergence” — the six-and-a-half minute, multi-part prog-metal epic that opened the Arcadia era in March — debuted at No. 57 on the Hot 100 in March, thanks in part to some mind-boggling streaming numbers (9.9 million official U.S. streams from March 14-20, according to Luminate), RCA had to adjust its forecast for the commercial prospects for its host album, says Fleckenstein. Some of the album's tracks also landed on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart.

“We knew they were great, and they were potent,” says Fleckenstein. “But when ‘Emergence’ came out, that’s when we saw the reality of where the numbers had gotten to.”

“Emergence” was followed by “Caramel” — a more radio-friendly (yet no less audacious) single that somehow manages to fuse together rhythmic pop, shuffling reggaeton and a shrieking metal breakdown — and “Damocles,” Sleep Token’s version of a power ballad with twinkling pianos that morph into thundering guitars. Both of those songs hit the Hot 100 as well, at Nos. 34 and 47, respectively — and the fact that the second and third songs released from Even in Arcadia peaked higher than the first one on the Hot 100 indicated to RCA that the host album was going to be a monster.

“Everyday along the path into this album, we were more and more confident that this was a big deal,” says Fleckenstein. “We just don’t see that kind of fan behavior and consistency, in terms of new music coming out.”

When RCA signed Sleep Token last year, Fleckenstein says that the two biggest indicators of the band’s upward trajectory were their rapid growth as a live act — the group went from clubs to theaters, and now to arenas, with strong ticket demand for each live run — and the online dedication of their fan base. The London natives have crafted a complex backstory over the year, with Sleep Token leader Vessel speaking of a higher power called Sleep and causing fans to parse through lyrics and messages to unlock new mysteries from their world.

For the band’s new major-label partner, Sleep Token’s anonymity has felt “liberating” as a promotional tool, especially in an era of artists oversharing on social media platforms. “So much of it is about the art that the band makes,” Fleckenstein notes. “The world that’s being created is being driven by the fans, and as we were building [the rollout] with the band, the part that was so rewarding was that we could not get more clever than this fan base.”

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