I’m sure there were several albums that came out last week. But if you were to take a look at my social media feeds, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the only record that came out was Take Me Back to Eden by Sleep Token. The anonymous British prog-metal group’s third record is an expansive, genre-defying exploration through twenty-first-century ennui that ranges from prog metal to pop to djent to R&B to deathcore to funk to hip hop to gospel to…you get the idea.

I’m not sure when exactly I first heard the term “post-genre” used to describe a band. It might have been Dirty Projectors. But the walls between styles have been breaking down for a while all across the musical spectrum. Even though the metal world is a little more protective of their genre (and plethora of subgenres), heavy music hasn’t been any less exploratory. Take for instance Zeal & Ardor’s Gospel/black metal fusion, or blackgaze’s fascination with post rock and shoegaze, or even nu-metal’s union with hip-hop in the 90s.

Even so, Sleep Token’s latest fusion is the most expansive melting pot of genres I’ve heard from a heavy band. “The Summoning” has enough riffs, screamed vocals, and double-kick rhythms to root it to prog metal, but it spirals out from that center to a soaring, hook-laden chorus and a Santana-esque guitar solo. But then, after an ambient interlude, the final moments launch into a literal funk section that isn’t played with nearly enough self-awareness. It’s a jarring shift, and it doesn’t get any less jerky on repeated listens.

It’s not the only moment that sounds absolutely bonkers on paper. Heck, it’s hardly the wildest. “Granite” starts as a full-on R&B track, complete with trap-influenced drum machines, until a detuned guitar riff wrestles it into djent territory until the two sounds merge together. “Vore” interrupts the pop balladry of “Aqua Regia” with a turn to the brutal with throat-curdling screams and the heaviest riffage on the record. “Ascensionism” interrupts the usual swell from atmospheric ballad to heavy catharsis with an honest-to-God rap break. “DYWTYLM” offers a Top 40 pop tune so conventional that I’d believe someone if they told me it was Ed Sheeran. The title track is an eight-minute prog metal rock opera that plays like they’re running back through all of the styles they played with on the rest of the record.

As I’m listening, I keep asking myself who this is for. There isn’t enough meat on its bones to satisfy anyone looking for a heavy record. A disproportionate amount of the sixty-four-minute runtime is spent in languid pop ballads, with far fewer bursts of fire than would be cathartic. Anyone looking for a more mainstream pop record is likely going to shut it off the second one of those rare moments of metal heft arrives. It’s not that there aren’t satisfying moments here: almost any isolated section is going to sound good on its own. And the production sounds fantastic. The slick production doesn’t declaw the more metallic tones. Guitars are guttural, drums are powerful, and the screams are hellish. But the way those moments lead into one another often feels clumsy.

I want to be clear that the mish-mash of stylistic left turns isn’t what makes this record not work for me. My issue is that it feels like they treat that sort of shapeshifting like an end unto itself. It feels almost like a circus act, offering up the sonic equivalent of a contortionist, with no real purpose beyond the grotesque twisting of their body. The fact of the matter is that there are bands who are doing similar sorts of metamorphosis that are far more satisfying, like Rolo Tomassi, Loathe, or even—if you want to keep to British prog-metal bands—Tesseract.

Does any of this make Take Me Back to Eden a bad record? Not necessarily. After all, there is a certain artistry in contortion, even without a cohesive narrative. And with the dazzling sound collage that Sleep Token has created, everyone is bound to find something they like here. But for me, the somethings I like are narrowly outnumbered by the somethings I don’t.

Take Me Back to Eden is out now through Spinefarm Records.

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