The 5 Best Vessel (Sleep Token) Performances

From the band's earliest singles through to the full-length masterworks they began releasing in 2019

Every Sleep Token offering is a gift.

From the band’s earliest singles through to the full-length masterworks they began releasing in 2019, and onto their most recent material, the mysteriously-masked and mystically-resonant UK band have wowed heavy-music fans with their dynamic mix of djent, R&B and electronic-music sounds.

At the front of the chain, however, is their frontman, Vessel, who has been keeping folks enraptured through a just-as-versatile display of vibrato-heavy vocalizations, fantasy-trap flows and gnarly screams.

But what is bar none the ultimate performance Vessel has tracked so far. We asked this question to Revolver readers, and they responded accordingly.

"Chokehold"

It’s no accident that Revolver readers voted this Take Me Back to Eden cut in as one of Vessel’s top performances — he puts on a multifaceted clinic with every breath.

Early on, amid atmospherically-ambient and noise-surged electric piano tones, Vessel’s vibrato undulates through a cloak of seemingly Auto-Tune-wriggling effects — though those still don’t mask his natural vocal prowess. Vessel later layers in rounds of ethereally-liliting falsetto harmonies when the song reaches it’s djentiest peak, but brings it all home with engagingly soulful, R&B-inflected vocal runs galore.

While fans could well say this about any number of Sleep Token cuts, it’s a performance tailor-made to take your breath away.

"Take Me Back to Eden"

“And now, the weightlessness recedes.”

Vessel wrote a heavy set of lyrics for the title track to 2021’s Take Me Back to Eden, but his transcendent and versatile performance on the song forever lifts the faithful towards a higher plane of consciousness.

Take your pick on what ultimately takes folks to their own personal Eden. His feverishly passionate falsetto phosphorescence? His tongue-twisting, effects-blurred trap-pop rhymes on “fake love”? The teeth-bearing screams he unloads during the daringly-detuned and djent-slammed finale?

No matter how you cut, every element of Vessel’s vocal style is its own unique sonic paradise.

"Atlantic"

The lead-off track from Sleep Token’s sophomore album, This Place Will Become Your Tomb, is full of oceanic and aqueous wordplay, as delivered through Vessel’s most tender whalesong moan. For fans, the sound of him working the mic with his signature quaver is as awe-inspiring as seeing a mighty blue whale majestically breaching itself out of Atlantic waters.

Following a mega-distorted climax, the final 30 seconds employ a gospel-choir-like aesthetic, kinda suggesting what a heavy-djented Hozier track would sound like. Here’s another way to put it: Vessel and Sleep Token took us to church with this worship-worthy track.

"Ascensionism"

Well, we know what you want from Vessel and Co. most nights: an impressive performance of Take Me Back to Eden standout “Ascensionism.”

The song is one Sleep Token’s most staggering epics, and it all begins with a precious piano-and-vocal tandem. Vessel is in max vulnerability mode, tremorous and whispery here as he reflects on identity and “bitter deception.”

The song soon swings towards a bass-booming section where Vessel’s vocals head from melodic, effects-blurred raps towards a soft and gauzy falsetto. Then it explodes into one of Sleep Token’s most magnificently dark-djentiest moments ever — and the masked frontman accordingly sets his inner beast free with a from-the-gut growl.

The powerhouse performance has had many obsessing over what — or, rather, who — made Vessel like this. Not that we’re complaining.

"Blood Sport" (From the Room Below version)

No regrets, here — Blood Sport marks the most essential vocal performance Vessel has laid down yet, per Revolver readers. And by a colossal margin.

Specifically, it’s the intimate (from the room below) performance Sleep Token’s frontman uploaded onto YouTube in 2020 that takes the top honors, here. And while the studio version found on Sundowning is a treasure in its own right, there’s something particularly exquisite about this live version.

The stark piano-and-vocal performance leans into Vessel’s sensitive-side in a major way. He’s not showing us any weakness, though — as the song unfolds through each elegiac piano chord, Vessel’s voice starts choking up chunks of melody with a soulful, grizzly-bear gruffness that needs to be heard to be believed.