SLEEP TOKEN

VENUE THE UNDERWORLD, LONDON

DATE 03/10/2019

SUPPORT EXPLORING BIRDSONG

Arare sighting of Liverpool’s Exploring Birdsong in the country’s capital is always well worth checking out. Tonight they are supporting incognito curios

Sleep Token. it’s difficult to know what to make of a band who hide their identity behind the masks; ghost are the obvious example and it doesn’t seem to do them any harm. in the prog world, more recently, we’ve had The Osiris Club, but they ditched the masks with the release of their second album.

Bring masked doesn’t seem to hold Sleep Token back. The Underworld is rammed to the rafters and reports suggest that the band’s forthcoming gig at islington assembly Hall in january has sold out within minutes. The perception until now has been that Sleep Token are some kind of metal band (more on that later), so your correspondent awaits exploring Birdsong with a distinct worry about how their melodic, piano-led prog and Lynsey Ward’s mesmerically sweet vocals will go down with the packed venue.

The answer arrives at the end of The river, which is greeted with politely warm applause and nervously happy grins from the four musicians on stage (tonight the trio are augmented by a female keyboard player and vocalist). The band omit the prog award-nominated The Baptism and we don’t get their gorgeous cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s (don’t fear) The reaper, but Turntail, Bear The Weight and

The downpour are all delivered with a growing confidence and even more rapturous reception. in the end, you’d have to say everyone is happy and it’s good to see exploring Birdsong ably handling what could have been a frosty crowd. it bodes well for the forthcoming release of their debut ep, The Thing With feathers, which the band are releasing on Long Branch records next month.

Sleep Token may be perceived as a metal band of sorts, but that’s not really reflected in the audience. Sure, there are some metal fans here, but there’s also a smattering of math rock fans, some non-denominational music fans – a really varied bunch. Sonically too, the band don’t give off much of a metal vibe. it’s only heavy in places, the rest of the time weaving between left-field pop, indie and something more esoteric.

The difficulty in pinpointing their sound revolves around singer vessel, who starts off sounding like jeff Buckley, but later someone likens him to pop singer james Blake. prog is pretty convinced that later in the band’s set he sounds like post-progger martin grech and by the climax of the performance people are pinpointing Coldplay’s Chris martin as a vocal similarity.

a curious mix, then. Sleep Token’s gimmick might grab the early headlines, but in the long term you can’t help but feel that exploring Birdong’s inherent quality will see them home.