Emergence

A discussion on the song Emergence as the turning point of the narrative framework that Sleep Token has set up, using music as their medium.

The Emergence emblem, which serves as cover for the track on streaming platforms.

Gone are the days of university papers and analysis for me but, being that analyzing literature is deeply ingrained in me thanks to a general interest and my English degree, I have decided to explore this concept here on the blog. Please keep in mind these are the ramblings of a completely unqualified music-loving literary nerd with good pattern recognition. I am intrigued by self-referential music—including soundtracks—and love spotting meta and other Easter eggs within music.

I first started exploring the concept of leitmotif when I immersed myself in the worlds of the games Undertale and Deltarune many years ago. It is defined below:

I started finding patterns in songs—themes that would occur whenever a character came on screen, melodies that played for multiple characters implying a link between them, etc. Like many people in the mid-2010’s, I also had a fling with the musical Hamilton, which further illustrated this concept. I’d watch videos detailing the links between songs, their meanings, their elements, etc., and my fascination with the concept grew. I started noticing it in other things as well—movies, and the music of my favourite band, Nightwish.

Enter the band Sleep Token. My husband started listening to them in spring of 2023, and he showed me a few of their songs and videos. I liked them, but I was really into another band that was occupying my mind at the time. It wasn’t until about 5 months later, with Brad playing them on repeat constantly, that I paused and REALLY listened. The next thing I knew, I was hooked. I don’t think a day has passed since then that I haven’t listened to their music. They skyrocketed up to my all-time most listened to band on the streaming platforms I use and now sit next to Nightwish in my “favourite band” hall of fame.

Emergence, as a result, is my first new release that I got to experience at the same time as everybody else.

Because this was the first new song we’d gotten in over two years, the fanbase has been awash with theories. We’ve been gifted little snippets that involve puzzle-solving and code cracking, relying on monuments and observatories that actually exist within our own world to give us clues about when the music might drop, and its potential themes. If this sounds interesting at all to you, I highly recommend you check out this video by Sleep Token Luke, which follows the story of the lead-up to Emergence.

When the song finally dropped, it immediately threw people, fans and non-fans alike, into a frenzy. The response was generally overwhelmingly positive, and, much like how “The Summoning” summoned new listeners into their sphere, Emergence was their full, well, emergence into the mainstream. Already they had merch at Hot Topic, but their US arena tour sold out in about an hour during general sales, and now they are getting regular radio play. It seems that everything this band does is poetic, whether intentional or not. The song was released on the same day as the lunar eclipse, as well—March 13. This was also referenced within their Teeth of God graphic novel, which, it seems, now is serving as a book full of Easter eggs leading up to this new album.

I’m now going to break down the song into some component parts to show how it illustrates storytelling using the band’s own self-referential framework.

Musically referential

There are a number of melodies or parts of songs that show direct similarities to Emergence. This isn’t the first time this has happened—the most obvious example of this is in the songs The Night Does not Belong to God and Euclid, but there are multiple other songs I have noticed as well. There is a musical link to Jaws and Nazareth, for example—a link I’d love to dissect in a further post, given the music video for Jaws—and there are links between Dark Signs, Chokehold, and Take me Back to Eden as well.

For Emergence, immediately the first song of reference that comes to mind is the Offering. Imagine, if you will, the opening keyboard bit of Offering under the first “go ahead and wrap your arms around me” bit. It links up perfectly, and if I knew how to mash up or remix songs, this is the first thing I would do.

There are several TMBTE (Take me Back to Eden) musical references within the song as well—the rapping alone harkens back to TMBTE (the track) and Ascensionism. It actually kind of inverts TMBTE in my mind: TMBTE ends with a very harsh and raw section, as opposed to Emergence, which ends with a soothing saxophone solo. We have a moment of suspension in which we could easily travel far beyond the path of reason again, but instead, there is a calm that follows. Also, the piano bit at the end of Emergence is extremely similar to the piano section in TMBTE. To me it feels like this is our sequel song to the album TMBTE—wrapping up the loose ends with a little bit of every song on the album and introducing us to this new world. We are not in Eden and we cannot go back; we are in Arcadia now. Vessel has ascended and we have, too.

Emergence has heavy chugs like Chokehold; a surprising finish like Summoning as well as a similar ambient beginning and some “shimmery” transitional elements; heavy-pop elements like Granite—plus, the transitional “snap” is reminiscent of the beloved Emergence “huh whoop”; a jazzy vibe and pop elements of Aqua Regia with the “‘EY” at the beginning also being reminiscent of the “whoop”s; some of the lyrical thematics of pain from Vore, as well as some of the heavily layered/cacophonic elements that I will get into below; I’ve already mentioned the Ascensionism similarities; there is the tenderness of Are you Really Okay?; the very beginning sounds just like The Apparition to me; there is more self-referencing of being someone else from DYWTYLM; very similar melodies throughout to Rain; I mentioned TMBTE already; and “out from underneath who you were” = “I must be someone new” - Euclid. The song itself sounds like it could have come from TMBTE, but Vessel’s vocal style has shifted here to something softer and breathier, a little cleaner and a little more natural. It could fool you into thinking it was a song from TMBTE, it’s true, but there are distinct differences at play.

To sum up the last paragraph: I really believe Emergence is our “goodbye Eden, hello Arcadia” song. I’ll be interested to see if track one is our usual mise-en-place/prologue track that we seem to get with every other album, especially since this album only has 10 tracks.

Touching briefly on the album This Place Will Become your Tomb, the “go ahead and wrap your arms around me” vocal is reminiscent of multiple instances of the shifted lower register voice within—we hear it in multiple songs, but Like That is probably my favourite example—notable drum beats in both of these songs, as well. Musically, there is almost a cacophonic point that reflects The Love You Want. Right near the end of that song, we have all of the layers that have made their way in—vocals, guitars, drums, harmonies—coming to an apex that then releases, and we get a calm finish that mirrors the beginning of the song. We have a similar moment at the end of Emergence, but we are not repeating the pattern: we are doing something different. And so, Gabi Rose’s beautiful sax soothes us out of the song along with Vessel’s accompanying piano. A note that roses appear lyrically, musically (Gabi Rose on sax), and in the Emergence emblem. A nice little bow on top.

In the beginning of the song, there is just a hint of acoustic plucking in the background that is reminiscent of Fields of Elation. Was he singing about Arcadia back then? Is that where the Fields of Elation are? We’ll come back to this topic a little later on.

Lyrically referential

Vessel has such an intriguing command over the English language and flawlessly is able to create wording that is somehow vague and extremely specific at the same time, which I believe is why so many are able to resonate with his songs and project themselves onto them. The songs are ambiguously worded enough that you can never fully tell what’s happening but you get a solid guideline—and, much like the lore, most of it is up to interpretation. Here are some lyrical guiding points that I have noticed within this song. Again, I’m sure I’ll find more—I haven’t even sat down with the lyrics. This is all just what has come to mind after nearly two weeks of listening and a year and a half straight of repeating the rest of the discography.

To me, Jaws is the first callback. We have a reference to “canines of the saviour” which yes, I believe references Teeth of God, but also “not here to be the saviour you long for, only the one you don’t” in a song that is all about teeth. In The Offering, he talks about “diamonds for teeth” and in TMBTE “grow back your sharpest teeth”, which would be canines.

In Aqua Regia, we hear “putting down the roses/picking up the sword”. It sounds as though there is another instance of this—“I am the rose you relinquished again”.

We have Sugar for the “arms around me” bit—“my arms keep you in the room”.

The Offering again—talking about teeth. Diamonds for teeth, sapphires in the white gold, canines of the saviour, etc.

“Solar flares for your dead gods”—this part could be in reference to, well, Gods?

The Way that you Were - “you will never be the same” links with “come on/come on/out from underneath who you were”.

Though I’m talking about meta-references only, the line “burst out of my chest/and hide out in the vents” is clearly a reference to the Alien franchise—but I also think it could be referencing the song Vore and getting swallowed whole. “Walls of flesh/so warm again/we step into/my suffering” and “are you in pain like I am?”—this is the pain that is being taken away in Emergence. Once again we have Gods being referenced with “will we remain stuck/in the throat of gods/will the pain stop/if we go deeper?”. To be stuck in the throat of a dead god could be referring to a repeated, unbroken cycle perhaps—once again we lie an inch apart on our own continuum.

In Euclid, the last song of TMBTE and the “epilogue” song for the album, we have ended this repeated cycle. We hear “this bough has broken through” and “I must be someone new”, immediately referenced by “come on, come on/out from underneath who you were” in Emergence. If I may speak in the terms of a winged insect, the first three albums were a prolonged caterpillar phase, the cocoon is being built in Euclid, and Emergence is when said winged insect—perhaps a moth or butterfly—comes free. I’d like to note that, out of curiousity, I did a google search for “Euclid Cocoon” in case such a thing existed and I came across this interesting bit of music released in Japan in 1981. Coincidence, or perhaps inspiration?

Aesthetically referential

The Arcadia we see so far: pinks and reds amid greys and blacks, with a little bit of gold in the background.

The video for The Love you Want has extremely similar imagery to the Arcadia we have thus far been introduced to, with its vibrant reds and pinks and abundant plant life. With the information we now have, this feels to me like Vessel was journeying to Arcadia but he kept getting tripped up in his own loop and couldn’t find the way to break free—this is also lyrically reflected in the lyrics: “you lie an inch apart on your own continuum”. He broke the cycle at last in Euclid—“this bough has broken through”. He tried going back to Eden and found he could not stay. It was time to break the cycle. So, he progresses at last.

To my interpretation, Vessel was attempting to visit Arcadia before he was ready—a reminder that growth cannot be forced, and that rushing it will never bring about the results we want but that it can, instead, actually send us further backwards. The darker imagery of the Love you Want, vs the brighter imagery we’ve been treated to thus far in Even in Arcadia, shows just how far removed from his destination Vessel truly was at that point in the story.

A screen grab from The Love You Want.

As well, Fields of Elation, which is one of their first music videos made back in 2018, has some subtle Arcadia imagery—skies give way to pink and magenta filters over blowing reeds and plants. This leads me to believe that this has been in the works from the very beginning—that Sleep Token’s discography is, in and of itself, a journey that has had multiple planned stops along the way and that Arcadia has been the destination all along.

Screen grab from the Fields of Elation music video.

With the new information we have now—with the little hints, and the “divide” that fans were presented with, we can delve a little further down the rabbit hole—as we are, in fact, “down headfirst/in another world”.

Behold, a divide

During the teaser phase of the new song, we were introduced to the concept of division between two factions—the House Veridian, with its green and gold crossed swords emblem, and Feathered Host, with its parchment-coloured feathered emblem. We were told to choose a part of this divide. Many of the fandom assumed this was one side versus the other, but I’d like to propose a different theory.

House Veridian - the house must endure - we are following tradition, borrowing from songs and concepts that already exist within this musical universe and using the musical structures we are accustomed to, IE Vessel and II’s writing styles. We also have a reference to the “unvanquished branch” in House Veridian social media posts, and that hasn’t been fully explored yet.

Feathered Host - the cycle must end - in so doing we are exploring new concepts and terrain. Vessel in Emergence seems much lighter, maybe even happier, to me. When we break a cycle and begin anew, we are in a strange and different place. A content creator I enjoy once said “If you’re scared and in someplace new, you’re exactly where you need to be”. Referencing the cocoon imagery I mentioned above, a caterpillar must build a cocoon and then completely break down into, effectively, goo, before emerging a butterfly. The space between Eucild and Emergence, as I theorize, is the “goo”. This is the breaking of the cycle.

To my mind, this is not a divide in the sense that we see it in 2025. We often think of political, global, religious, or personal division. However, I see this as something else. We had two pieces of the emblem for the Emergence launch—again, this is all detailed in Sleep Token Luke’s Chasing Arcadia video. The emblem—and the song itself—needed parts from both HV and FH. They had to come together. It was never a true divide, but instead two pieces of the puzzle. Perhaps we can look at the word “divide” and say that it was divided in half, rather than a difference in sides or opinion. Akin to splitting firewood with an axe—an axe which, interestingly, makes its way into the Emergence emblem, I will note.

The Emergence emblem once again.

This is by no means exhaustive. I could probably write more and, frankly, probably will after sitting down with Emergence in the context of the rest of the music we have so far, especially after the forthcoming album drops in May.

To me, it feels as though Sleep Token is a masterclass in world-building with music as its medium. They are not simply a band: they are theatre, cinema, and literature in addition to music. Toss in a little gaming with the alternate reality game (ARG) they made for the song’s clues. Like any good narrative, it makes you feel and think, and with music as its medium, we can draw a story from it. Whether this story is loose or specific, we don’t fully know yet—it seems every fan has a theory of what’s happening and none have been confirmed or denied. Part of the allure is the mystery and the lack of concrete knowledge, and the ability we have as fans to project ourselves onto it. I’m sure, in a lot of ways, many see Sleep Token’s discography as their own personal memoir.

I am not even touching on the rich well of outside reference that Vessel uses here and, if I did, I’d probably be able to write about three times as much on that alone. This is strictly meta-analysis—and on one song! We don’t even know what the mystery sheet music—which was released on February 26—is yet, as it was clearly not in Emergence. Maybe when the album launches I’ll get into even more—especially if anyone is interested in reading. I clearly have a lot to say and could keep going!

May 9th isn’t far, but I have the feeling, thanks to more hints dropped in the graphic novel, that we will see something in the next few days, if we look keenly and wait patiently.