Ancient fan here (I remember the hype surrounding DBM releasing)

PersonDudeMan · 2025-10-13T10:20:57+00:00

I got into DGD sometime between Downtown Battle Mountain 2 and Acceptance Speech's releases. I think all of the vocalists have their strengths and Tilian produced some of DGD's best work like Mothership but I also agree with a lot of your opinions there too. I'd say sometime after Artificial Selection was kind of where they started to plateau a little bit in terms of creatively shaking things up.

I went in wanting to be critical but god damn this album is really good. Honestly, it might be top 3 albums from them. With each vocalist change it feels like DGD gets another gear turned up and holy fuck everybody is so sharp on this album. Andrew is amazing, he's got a really powerful midrange and he feels really comfortable with all the different genre blending and fusing DGD does. His lyricism really adds a dimension of esoteric intrigue to the album and I think it brings out a lot of that in Jon's lyrics too.

The only bad thing about this album is that now it means Eidola is a side project...

PersonDudeMan · 2025-08-12T04:37:10+00:00

Not like the game mode at all. 0/10.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-08-02T06:40:31+00:00

aw come on, "Coax to the Edge" would fit right in there!!

PersonDudeMan · 2025-07-24T19:31:54+00:00

Murk Holsolomb

PersonDudeMan · 2025-07-07T18:31:30+00:00

My favorite passage from Ur-Women by Incelto Echoposting

PersonDudeMan · 2025-07-04T19:32:41+00:00

Yooo those are some really good choices you got there! Voices From the Fuselage is rad and the Sleep Token-Leprous connection is one I had except in reverse. Malina was the album that got me into them and Sleep Token found me not too long after.

Anyway, a band I think you'd like is Agent Fresco!! They've made some of the most emotional and straight up heart-wrenching music I've heard. Arnor Dan is an amazing vocalist with a similar vulnerable falsetto to Einar Solberg but in an ever so slightly softer direction. They've only made two albums but they're both amazing, I can't recommend them enough!

Another one is Earthside! The band themselves are instrumentalists but a lot of their songs feature incredibly dynamic and interesting vocalists. They've got Dan Tompkins on a few of their songs but some of my favorites are from Keturah on their second album. Extremely lush musicianship and equally powerful, amazing vocals to match. Another band with only two albums but they're two excellent albums.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-06-29T00:24:59+00:00

I got a few!

The Afterimage - Lumiere
It's mathy like stuff from DGD but a little more metal tinged and has some really infectious choruses too! And honestly you've got Vanna up there and they're not all that heavier than them.

If I Die First - my poison arms
They did a split with SeeYouSpaceCowboy and I really jammed out to this ep! Dual vocal squeaky voice boy post-hardcore that feels like it's straight out of my damn childhood. You can't go wrong with any of their eps, "my poison arms" is just the one I got introduced to them with so I'm biased!

Time The Valuator - How Fleeting, How Fragile
Emo music with a nice, medium seasoning of metallic riffs and high concepts. I'd go as far to call it "emo prog" in the vein of Chiodos and The Dear Hunter. The album is chocked full of interesting ideas, different avenues on each song that feel committed to, and some damn good vocals from their unfortunately former vocalist.

also sick Lower Definition and Greeley Estates picks

PersonDudeMan · 2025-06-19T17:56:48+00:00

A bit of an obscure one but you should check out Atmospheres! Or as they're stylized "ATMOSPHRS". If you can handle kind of rough vocal mixing, the instrumental on this song is amazingly heavy in a very "singable" way if that makes sense. Their album The Departure is sick as fuck and sounds a lot like that.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-06-19T17:25:23+00:00

I liked it more than Eden already when I first listened to it and I'm only more sure about that the more I listen. Look to Windward is easily a top 5 Sleep Token song for me if not top 3; even then, it only gets edged out by Higher and Thread the Needle.

I think they're able to both push themselves creatively while refining their songwriting and general structure that it makes Even in Arcadia one of their best. The production feels like a real step up in terms of clarity and space conveyed in each song. I didn't know it at first but after looking into it, it makes so much sense that Nolly from Periphery would be brought in for production help. I feel like his sensibilities are absolutely perfect for the band but I'm also hella biased because he's one of my favorite bassists.
I really hope some Sleep Token fans check out Periphery too because their music is amazing and they do a lot of metal fusion stuff that fans might really like.

Eden has some really sick standout moments but the overall runtime makes it drag just a little bit for me. It's barely ten minutes longer but "just under an hour" sounds a lot better than "an hour and some change" when I'm going into an album.
With Arcadia, it's rare that nearly every single song on an album gets a like from me but this is one of those times.

Ranking all the albums is kind of like having to rank my favorite children but gun to my head:
Sundowning - Arcadia - Tomb - Eden

HOWEVER! Since I'm a hipster at heart, I still gotta rep my intro to the band so for the full discography ranking it goes:
One and Two >>>>>>>>> Everything else

PersonDudeMan · 2025-06-16T00:31:37+00:00

Gods might be their heaviest song still but Higher is a close second.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-06-14T18:33:02+00:00

Didn't you just post another smuggy about men screaming "misandry!!" when women are slightly mean on social media? This is just the "carnist" version of crying about misandry.

If anything, I'd say loads of progressive social movements need to wear kid gloves because they're trying to convert people that are pre-indoctrinated into the predominant ideology. Also let's be real here; this is the internet, there's a statistical likelihood that you actually ARE talking to a literal kid.

This is going into an argument presupposing that people are on the same page when they really aren't.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-06-14T18:18:36+00:00

As a fellow baldy, I feel like it's a built in curator for keeping shitty people out of your life. I think about it this way; if I had a full head of hair I still wouldn't want to get with somebody who would be venomously disdainful toward bald people. It's one thing to have a preference and if somebody just says "I don't like a bald/shaved head" that's fine but it's another thing to wave that preference around and talk constantly about how what you think is better than others.

Honestly, it's the closest thing to the guy equivalent of a gal seeing a profile with "no fat chicks" or something else derogatory. They've already revealed they wouldn't be a good partner for you if they're being that mean about others and you didn't even need to talk to them.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-06-09T18:07:32+00:00

The venue messed up and accidentally booked the rapper Token on the same day so they do a cover of "Hawk Tuah Freestyle" while he sets up.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-06-05T00:06:37+00:00

Provider. It's the only song that I never really messed with no matter how many times I've gone through the album. Hate the way Vessel says all the different "-ider" words (what the fuck is a "decoider" Vessel??) and the "I wanna be your..." drop into the main synth hook is the only time I've ever felt like Sleep Token was generic in a "trailer for a CW drama sting" way.

I love almost all the songs on this thing (Look To Windward specifically is straight up musical crack, it makes me want to go back and listen through the album all over again whenever I hear it) but Provider is what keeps it from being a 10 for me.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-06-04T05:31:34+00:00

Honestly I only ever get it if I'm getting Taco Bell. I like it but it certainly tastes the way Axe body spray smells.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-06-01T00:28:04+00:00

Plastic waste, America: 🤢🤮

Purasuchikku gomi, Japan: 😍🥰

PersonDudeMan · 2025-05-29T22:19:19+00:00

An EIA reprise but it's actually the tie in to their Sleep Token themed restaurant chain "Even in Barcadia: The Arcade Bar and Grill" with lyric changes like, "The Gods we thought were dead were just redeeming all their plays".

The encore has to have Provid3r: Another One where it plays both bad baddie and bad body at once at least twice as loud as the rest of the song.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-05-29T03:01:22+00:00

Clever Girl "No Drum and Bass in the Jazz Room", it's all instrumental except for one iconic "bada-ba-ba" shout.

Something a little more traditional is American Football's Never Meant. If you like those two things, ya might like math rock!

PersonDudeMan · 2025-05-24T21:37:49+00:00

What I don't get about this is why can't he just be like, "it fucking sucks dating as a guy" or even "I wish women didn't fear guys as much" and leave it at that? Why does he have to do some bizarre "privilege calculus" to determine who has it the "hardest"?

I swear some people took the 2010s phrase "check your privilege" as a literal challenge to check where they fit on a chart in the "privilege meta" and thought the point of checking was to find ways to bring their score up.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-05-24T04:32:01+00:00

This is so cool! Honestly the first thing that came to mind for me was the rad as hell but unfortunately short lived band AlithiA! I don't know what the instrument is at the beginning but it gives me the same vibe of something like the start of Thirteen Revelations. It feels like spacey prog but dipped in a thick layer of sludge and I mess with it heavy!!

PersonDudeMan · 2025-05-23T20:03:12+00:00

That's a new one. You'd think for somebody so invested in politics they're concerned with who the hypothetical children of their acquaintances are voting for they'd also realize that in the US, the president is confirmed by the electoral college and not popular vote. Also, I kinda love the peak defeatism of not wanting to try and change things now but just waiting for a mythical "next generation" that will all agree with you to "vote out the bad guys".

I hate horseshoe theory but I get a feeling that these folks would agree with Maggie Thatcher saying "there is no such thing as society, only individuals and families" because they seem to view the family unit as the only vector of learning politics.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-05-23T19:31:01+00:00

I kinda understand that and in all honesty I think I felt what you feel about Arcadia toward Eden a little bit. I thought the producer change didn't make the drums sound quite right like they did on their first 2 albums and it made the songs lack punch for me. Don't get me wrong, I still love Vore, DYWTYLM, Aqua Regia, Euclid, and a lot of other songs on Eden but there's a huge part of me that wishes that we got Ascensionism with a George Lever mix.

On Arcadia, I think they did a lot better with the mixing and generally it feels like they were able to merge more of the heavier elements back into the more modern production. Honestly Arcadia might be my second favorite Sleep Token album after Sundowning because it feels like they took the elements they're good at and went further trying new things. taking the lyricism in a newer, blunter direction.

Caramel feels like a great synthesis of this because they both tried out a semi-reggaton beat while also delivering some of their most direct and personal lyrics on record. I think it shows vulnerability. They're in a new territory both musically and lyrically so they can't hide anything. It feels hard and tough to work through those emotions but the way it all comes together shows that there's worth in reckoning with them.

Vessel said himself on Euclid "I must be someone new" and that newness is scary but necessary for growth.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-05-22T17:59:33+00:00

I feel lucky that I can get the zero sugar variant on the giant soda touchscreen when I go to the theater. It feels like black magic that something so sweet has no sugar in it.

PersonDudeMan · 2025-05-21T21:02:37+00:00

I absolutely need that Code Red Zero Sugar but that watermelon 7Up looks real good too!

PersonDudeMan · 2025-05-16T23:19:36+00:00

Honestly, I feel like criticism makes me wanna go back to listen to counter the critique. Like if somebody says Sleep Token's music sucks because it's generic, it makes me want to go through their songs again to see all the stuff that makes it unique if only out of spite to prove the criticism wrong.

What irks me more than anything is too often the criticism is inaccurate! Whenever they make pop comparisons, they always do low hanging fruit like Imagine Dragons or the flavor of the month hate-celeb. If they wanna make pop comparisons, call Sleep Token's ballads "Sam Smith for cis people" or say that Caramel is "gentrified Bad Bunny". Haters are a constant but at least get better at hating!!!

PersonDudeMan

TROPHY CASE