All The Easter Eggs and Callbacks In Sleep Token’s Latest Album

Sleep Token have exploded on the scene in the past five months, and it’s been a slow burn for them to get to this point.

BUT, it turns out, they’ve been playing the long game since the beginning, hiding little nuggets in their music, just waiting for us to find them YEARS after they’ve been recorded.  

The mysterious band got their start in 2016 with two EPs One and Two. At the start of 2023, they were still only seeing about 220,000 monthly listeners.  

But everything changed when they released “Chokehold” and “The Summoning” ahead of their latest album Take Me Back to Eden. From there, the band ballooned to MILLIONS of listeners every month. 

But Vessel seemingly knew from the beginning that this would happen. In the only interview he’s done, before the release of their second EP Two in 2017, he said… 

“We are here to deliver a message; touch people in their hearts and subconscious minds. Soon, regardless of cynicism, you will all be followers… Worship.” 

Here we are, seven years later, worshiping together, just as he said we would be.  

And now that we have the band’s full story from “When the Bough Breaks” to “Euclid,” we can’t help but notice that their latest Offering to the deity Sleep is chock full of callbacks and Easter eggs to previous songs, albums and EPs. 

For the sake of the masses, these are probably the most important callbacks, and Easter eggs you need to know, so you can fully worship Sleep as we have all come to do with Vessel. 

• Lyric at 2:48: “I’m done dancing to Alarm Bells” – This references back to “Dark Signs” from the band’s first album Sundowning. At 1:14 into the song Vessel says, “Alarm Bells in your Eyes” 
• Aqua Regia is also an acid used in the process of alchemy to dissolve noble metals. The song “Aklaline,” on the band’s second album This Place Will Become Your Tomb, mentions using acid to transform. “Alkaline” seems to infer that Vessel is asking Sleep to transform him. This time, Vessel is using the “Aqua Regia” to transform himself. 

• Lyric at 0:28: “I raised you in the dark” – This is also a reference to the song “Dark Signs” from Sundowning. At 0:28 Vessel says “Where I was raised, there was no streetlights.” Possibly coincidental they both occur at 0:28 into their respective songs. 

• Lyric at 0:58: “And don’t you know I could see it in you even then?” – This is also a reference back to “Dark Signs” at 1:08 when he says “And we met / I could see dark signs / Alarm bells in your eyes” 

• Lyric at 3:20: “Sink porcelain stained, choking up brain matter and make-up” – Likely a callback to the aftermath of events told in “Nazareth” on the band’s Second EP Two. At 1:36, Vessel says “Let’s load the gun / Make her eat the tape in the bathroom mirror / See if she can guess what a hollow point does to a naked body” 
• Lyric at 5:29: “I don’t know what’s got its teeth in me, but I’m about to bite back in anger” – Several references to “biting,” or “sinking teeth” into Vessel from Sleep. “The Offering” from Sundowning, the band’s lone single of “Jaws,” and from their second album This Place Will Become Your Tomb, the song “High Water.”

“When the mouth of infinity Buries its teeth in me” 

• Lyric at 6:50: “It was no accident” and “We were tangled up like branches in a flood” – These are referencing back to lyrics in the album’s opener “Chokehold.” 

Maybe the BIGGEST, most obvious, and deep callbacks are in Euclid, which serves like an overture of the band’s entire library of music. 

• Lyric: “Just run it back, give me five whole minutes” – Begins at 14 seconds into the song, which is 5 minutes and 14 seconds long. He takes “Five Whole Minutes” to reflect on the entire story, spanning their entire discography. 
• Lyric at 1:55: “And do you still believe / That nothing else matters” – This is a reference back to “Bloodsport” on Sundowning, where Vessel says “You say it doesn’t matter” 
• Lyric at 2:41: “The night Belongs To You” – Also a direct callback to “This Night Does Not Belong To God” at the beginning of the album trilogy. 
• Lyric at 2:48: “This Bough Has Broken Through” – A reference to the song “When the Bough Breaks” from the band’s second EP Two. 
• Lyric at 4:02: “The Whites of your Eyes / Turn Black in the lowlight / In turning divine / We tangle endlessly / Like lovers entwined / I know for the last time / You will not be mine / So give me the night…” – This is a line-for-line mirror of the same verse from “This Night Does Not Belong to God” on the band’s first album Sundowning released in 2019. The first line of “The Whites in your Eyes,” too, is referenced in “Jaws” from 2018. 

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There’s more to find if you want to dig deeper and Worship even more with Sleep Token, but the references begin to get VERY deep. Fans on Reddit have even begun compiling a list.  

It’s even possible, as small as some of these details can be, if you dig deep enough, the band may have even hidden their identities within the lyrics. But even if we DID figure out their identity, we respect their wishes to remain anonymous. 

What do you think? Do you think these callbacks and Easter eggs make Sleep Token even more interesting? Did you catch a callback that we missed?