Guitarist Doc Coyle has defended Sleep Token amid online hate, calling out elitist backlash and drawing comparisons to past metal acts who were once hated for their success.
Snot and former Bad Wolves guitarist Doc Coyle has pushed back on what he calls the “pretentious gatekeeping” surrounding Sleep Token’s meteoric rise, slamming the recent wave of online hate in a new op-ed for Metal Hammer.
Sleep Token’s new album Even In Arcadia delivered one of the biggest sales weeks for a rock act in recent years, but the success has drawn a loud backlash online, particularly from corners of the metalcore community.
“In spite of, or maybe due to, this commercial triumph, the backlash has been harsh and swift,” Coyle wrote. “The metalcore online discourse, as I said, is a nightmare.”
“My Twitter feed reads like a revolt against Sleep Token. The most common refrain is some version of, ‘This band should not be allowed to be called metal anymore!’ Many find the cult-like devotion of their fans to be repulsive.”
Coyle points to a string of harsh critiques, from Pitchfork to Anthony Fantano, but suggests there’s more at play than just taste. “This isn’t critique – it’s antipathy, revulsion, wholesale rejection,” he says. “But the subtext gives away the game. Sleep Token’s crime is not their artistic choices; it’s the audacity to become the most popular rock act on earth with those choices.”
He goes on to defend the band’s blend of heavy and pop elements, arguing that other artists – like Opeth, Myrkur, and Devin Townsend – are celebrated for being experimental, while Sleep Token are attacked.
“My biggest pushback against this line of critique is against the idea that Sleep Token’s lean into pop discredits their metal bona fides, or that they are doing pop poorly,” he writes. “In my estimation, since Bring Me The Horizon released their polarizing album, amo (2019), pop has burrowed its way into metalcore’s DNA…Many of the top dogs are already swimming in this pool. But Sleep Token crossed some invisible purity line, breaching the social contract.”
Coyle also singles out the backlash as part of a broader issue with fan culture in heavy music: “I don’t begrudge anyone who dislikes the album or the band. What bothers me is the coalitions of lynch mobs against popular heavy bands as a trend. It’s knee-jerk contrarianism to dislike what the masses like. I don’t think that’s cool.”
Drawing comparisons to the past treatment of Limp Bizkit and Metallica, Coyle warns against repeating the same toxic cycles with Sleep Token and other acts. “This is ‘why we can’t have nice things’ in practice,” he writes. “Hating bands as trends is not cool because trying to be cool isn’t cool. It is another form of conformity, elitism.”
He closes with a simple message: “It’s just music. Just because you have a right to be an asshole about this stuff, doesn’t mean you have to be. Be an outsider. Be a nerd. And it’s okay to sometimes be a basic bitch that likes things that make you feel good.”
The piece lands as Even In Arcadia continues to draw in new fans, with Sleep Token cementing themselves as one of the most polarising – and talked about – bands in heavy music right now.
RELATED
MORE IN Music
