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A very anticipated album just released a week or so ago – Even In Arcadia by everyone’s favorite non-metal metal band or dark pop band or *checks Wikipedia* alt/prog/post-metal indie pop R&B band, Sleep Token.

Based on a first couple of listens… it’s fine. I have more to add – first let me yap a bit for content, then I’ll give the real details.

I first discovered Sleep Token when The Algorithm recommended I watch the video for Alkaline.

Isn’t that sick? (I mean, it’s like 4 years old now, so you’re either well aware or have probably already decided you don’t care, but whatever.)

So anyway, I downloaded This Place Will Become Your Tomb, which had a lot of neat tracks. The opener, Atlantic, is really powerful, and I still love Alkaline. Every once in a while, parts of Distraction or Descending pop into my head for seemingly no reason.

Then, singles started dropping from the follow-up (and ending to the initial Sleep Token “trilogy”), Take Me Back to Eden. Each one was pretty incredible, and the entire album is, if I dare say, a masterpiece. (Most reviews are absolutely glowing, and the harsh ones tend to either point out how long it is or just how much it seems to be trying to do, which I think are its selling points.)

The first singles (also the first tracks on the album, probably not coincidentally) Chokehold and The Summoning are a pretty good intro into what’s going on here. Chokehold has some heavy rock riffs with a clean, possibly “pretty” vocal on top. The Summoning starts out heavy, then about 2 minutes in, the background turns sort of ethereal, then there’s what I guess you could call a breakdown, but on an organ? And then it closes with like an R&B sex jam?

Anyway, the rest of the album is like this. There’s a track called Aqua Regia which I guess is the album’s follow up to Alkaline – it’s a love song describing one’s feelings in terms of chemical reactions. Then, the centerpiece of the album is Ascensionism, that starts with piano and a sort of haunting vocal, then switches up to a trap beat and rapping, then a section that I can really only describe as “grand”, then some metal screams, and then an outro that mirrors the intro. It’s a lot. How do they cram all that into one song? It’s over 7 minutes long, that’s how!

As the album proceeds, all of the various elements are assembled and reassembled in different arrangements. Each song is unique, but also distinctly sounds like Sleep Token. I would say the album defines the band’s identity (for good and bad).

Now why did I just spend four paragraphs describing an album that isn’t the one this post is about? Because honestly, where Take Me Back to Eden was surprising, and groundbreaking, and refreshing, Even In Arcadia is familiar and orderly and kinda boring.

I’ve listened to it straight through a few times, but I’m going to do it again now as I write this and give some track-by-track notes. (I’m not a music reviewer; my opinions are meaningless, but they are mine, and so I will spout them as if they are correct.)

Look to Windward

This is a nice opener. It’s got a weird intro I can’t quite describe, then a soft vocal that gets to the hook line and repeats it just enough to really burn it into your brain. Then an… interlude? followed by another verse, just a little bit louder. This is building to something… oh, Vessel whispers the hook line and then the instrumental explodes into a metal breakdown. Yeah, it’s cool. It’s what I expect in a Sleep Token song now. And then a trap beat and rapping. Neat. And we close out on some guitars, some falsetto vocals, and then some of that “ethereal” backing over whispers, and then the breakdown again. This is a good track, but it almost seems like it’s a redo of The Summoning or some other tracks from TMBTE.

Emergence

This was the first single off of the album, and it’s getting radio play (at least on satellite radio, no idea about terrestrial), so maybe you’re already aware. It starts with piano and Vessel doing a nice, clean, simple vocal. Guy can sing. Then we have this downshifted repeating hook (or maybe a backup vocalist), and then we’re into the rapping. It’s fun; the lines are pretty memorable and the flow is cool. After the hook again, we’re back into the rap, but this time the beat is replaced by the guitars. It’s an interesting little change. Similarly, we repeat the opening vocal, but with the full instrumental over it instead of just the piano. And then this one moment – it’s so dumb, but so fun and goes so hard. The whole video is embedded, but just play it for a few seconds.

That WHOOOP is so fuckin’ weird. Anyway, cool song. This was a good single. Oh, and it ends on a saxophone solo. Hell yeah.

Past Self

This one opens starts with… raps? There’s a certain vocal flow, but there’s not really a “beat”; maybe this song is more “R&B” styled… ok, if Vessel wasn’t “rapping” before, then at about 0:42, he definitely is.

This is nice. It’s definitely more pop-oriented, with perhaps a little dig at the over-obsessed fans with a line about “true believers that turned out to be faithless”. It’s a fun little bop. (I say “little” because it’s about half the length of either of the previous tracks.)

Dangerous

This one is downtempo. The closest comparison from TMBTE is maybe a less repetitive DYWTYLM. About a minute and a half in, a sort of electronic bit kicks in with like WHOOPs but digital, like a single tone of an alarm or something. It’s a good track, but the slower vocal makes this track feel like it drags, even though it’s only about 4 minutes long.

Caramel

This was the second single. “Stick to me like caramel” sounds like it should be a line from one of the sex jams, but it’s not. This song is about how Vessel hates that the fan base keeps trying to tear down his anonymity while he’s just trying to make music, but he does genuinely enjoy the fact that people like what they’re doing.

Musically, it’s a pretty poppy song, with a driving metal breakdown about 3 and a half minutes in. It’s a good emotional hit, and it’s easy to see that what Vessel describes feeling in the song as real, since some of the band’s dealings with the fans are well documented at this point. (Compared to, say, Atlantic from TPWBYT, which is a song about surviving a suicide attempt. I don’t know if Vessel has actually been through that, but I do know that fans don’t want to let him just be Vessel.)

Even In Arcadia

This is not the banger that the title track of TMBTE was. (It’s also not over 8 minutes long like that one was.) It’s shorter, at least vocally (the lyrics page on Genius can just about display the whole thing on my laptop screen without scrolling), but the slow tempo stretches it out temporally and accentuates the emotion of the song. I’m not 100% on what that emotion is, but it’s powerful and will probably resonate differently for different people.

Provider

This one’s a love song, but instead of like Alkaline where Vessel sings about how perfect the person he’s in love with is, it’s about how he just wants to give them everything, but then also the lyrics explain that these two have already been together, and so this not about pursuing the object of one’s affection, but getting back together with an ex. (TMBTE had a lot of lyrics about realizing that a relationship was bad and coming to terms with loving someone by way of letting them be happy somewhere else and growing as a person without them, so maybe this is a continuation of that “lore”.)

Damocles

This was the third single released, but I didn’t listen to it until the album came out. It’s sort of a follow-up to Caramel, but where Caramel is about how Vessel is torn between the pressures of performing for millions of adoring fans and the satisfaction of knowing those fans are there to hear what he’s making, Damocles is about how fame could come crashing down at any time, leaving one’s life in ruin, and how you might not even be able to tell that it’s happening.

Musically, it’s a pretty song, feeling a lot like Euclid from TMBTE. (Interestingly, Euclid ended that album and called all the way back to the opening of Sundowning, bringing to a close not just the album, but essentially the whole trilogy.)

Gethsemane

This is another “here’s how I’m doing after our relationship” song. (Which is what Euclid was about on TMBTE.) That is the recurring theme throughout the Sleep Token discography, a lot of “I’m broken up that we’re not a thing anymore, but it wasn’t working anyway and I’m getting better” intertwined with “ACTUALLY I AM NOT GETTING BETTER AT ALL”. (In fact, one of the lines in Caramel is “I thought I got better, but maybe I didn’t.”)

Musically, now that I’m sitting here reading the lyrics and playing through parts of it repeatedly… wow. This hits me the way Euclid does. The lyrics are sad, the delivery just emphasis how sad they are, and the instrumental is there just enough to pull everything along. It kind of sounds upbeat, almost like the song itself is putting on that mask of telling you everything is fine while holding back tears.

And there’s a riff in the middle right around the chorus that sounds like the one in Euclid around the “Do you remember me when the rain gathers?” line. As I sit here parsing the whole thing, that just pushed me over the edge.

But then, in sort of typical Sleep Token fashion, the whole vibe changes and we get what essentially feels like a different song. When we have a rock song with a pop verse, it still feels like it fits, but a slow, soft song that absolutely just rips your heart out doesn’t need the shift here. Or maybe it does, to pull you back from that edge, right before ending on “…even though it’s over now, I will always be reminded.”

Infinite Baths

Ok, that last song feels like it should have been the ending, if only because it’s so much like Euclid that I want to go out on that note like TMBTE did.

But we have this “encore” (I guess sort of like how the title track was the “ending” of TMBTE and then Euclid followed it) song. It’s hopeful; there’s a lot of “I know how much worse things could be, and I’m fighting to stay above that”. Then we have a screaming breakdown that’s nearly incomprehensible. (I say “nearly” because with the lyrics in front of me, I can decipher it. It’s like the screaming parts of Vore in that the distortion of the vocal coupled with the sheer volume of the instrumental that makes it almost hard to tell there’s even a vocal present.) And the last line of said breakdown is “I will be what I am.” – defiant in its delivery. And then we go out on about a minute of heavy instrumental. (The sort of thing people have probably been waiting for a bit now, maybe the whole album.)

Going track by track, giving each one a more careful listen and reading the lyrics alongside, every song is somewhere between fine and great. So why does the album feel so underwhelming when you put it on in the car and listen to it straight through?

First, I think the songs kind of demand a careful listen. I think they’re dealing with some heavy stuff, and if you aren’t giving it your full attention, you just get the vibes, and the vibes are weird.

Second, if you look at those track-by-track notes, there’s a lot of “oh, this is like Euclid” or “this is like The Summoning.” Even in Arcadia doesn’t feel like another chapter (because the story “ended” already), but it also doesn’t feel like the opening of a new one. It feels like an epilogue. (And maybe it is; maybe this is the band putting out some thoughts and feelings while they work on a new story. Some of these tracks feel like they could have fit in TMBTE, so maybe they were discarded, or are like B-sides and were put together here.)

Third, I think Sleep Token is leaning a lot more on a “formula” that came out of the response to TMBTE. I feel like, not only are the songs mostly arrangements of the same pieces (the pretty vocals, the heavy breakdowns, the trap verses), but on this album, there’s no surprise or novelty to it anymore. When you think Vessel is going to start rapping, he does. When you think they’re going to drop in a loud guitar section, they do.

There is some new territory here. Musically, there’s some more electronic vibes in a couple of places, and thematically, there’s a lot more about how the band themselves are grappling with what their sudden, incredible success is doing to them as people, and also how their desire for anonymity doesn’t really let them deal with that. (But doctor, I AM Vessel…)

So yeah, if you think Sleep Token is overrated, or you hate them because they’re in the rock and metal scene despite featuring other musical styles more predominantly, then this album isn’t changing your mind. If you like Sleep Token because you like mashing genres together and weird vibes, then you’re getting more of that here. However, if Take Me Back to Eden grabbed your attention because just how different it was, Even in Arcadia isn’t going to bowl you over the same way.

It’s fine.

Lots of people are complaining about how bad this part of AEW has been lately, and it has been some of the worst parts of the shows (or at least majorly disappointing).

The Revolution PPV ended with a string of five matches all rated 4 or more stars (out of 5), and then the Moxley/Copeland match, which was… fine. It actually was just fine. They did some decent stuff, but it dragged on a bit.

Then, Dynasty ended with the Young Bucks coming back, which was cool, I guess. (I’m not the biggest fan, but they’re good.) They helped Moxley retain the world title, but mainly to try to get Hangman back on their side by interfering with Swerve. Now that they’ve been back, they aren’t working with the Death Riders at all.

Now, the Death Riders have lost the trios titles, and things are breaking down. If you think it’s taken too long to get here, that’s probably true, but this angle isn’t bad.

So we’ve got a world title scene that is kind of interesting, some big returns, and a women’s scene that’s stealing every show. (Yeah, the AEW women’s scene is ridiculous.) It’s fine.

So Japan, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia happened since China. Max won a race, and then Oscar Piastri won the other two. We do appear to have a one-team season like we have in the past, but this year it’s McLaren. The Red Bull is still fast, but they’re a one-car team, so McLaren gets to run away with it. Mercedes and Ferrari are consistently scoring points, but not tons of them.

Between the McLaren battle and the rookies starting to get it together (somewhat), there should be some more fun coming this season. It’s fine.

Here’s where we see how far this page reaches…

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I went to see Starset do an acoustic set at a brewery in Baltimore. It was fun; they were really chill and Starset is, to me, a pretty big band to be doing a show for like a hundred people in the back of a brewery. They’re pretty good; I’ve been into their singles for most of their tenure, but never listened to their albums until last September when I saw one of their demonstrations and I got hooked. They put on a good show, and I’m looking forward to their next stuff.

However, some of their songs are just sort of there and the whole “sci-fi space thing” is just kind of shoved in. (Now, don’t get me wrong, some songs absolutely nail it.) They make good music, but I’m not going to draw fanart of them or get things tattooed onto me.

When I first had the idea of writing a post about Starset, I wanted to say something about how excessive and weird their fans are, but honestly, I think that’s just the nature of fandoms now, and I just wasn’t really involved before. And they all signed my copy of their book. They’re fine.

I meant to write a post like “The Australian Grand Prix was fine” but I didn’t get around to it, and then another race came and went. Whoops.

But the two races were very different. Australia had the weird rain on and off. The start was abandoned when a car crashed on the formation lap, then the safety car came out when two other cars crashed during the actual first lap of the race. Ultimately, only 14 out of 20 cars finished, but three different teams were represented in the top three finishers. And Max Verstappen didn’t win! (Marking the first time he isn’t in the Drivers’ Championship lead since 2022.) Some teams showed they had a lot to work on, and the rookies (outside of Antonelli) didn’t impress.

• Isack Hadjar – Crashed during formation lap
• Jack Doohan – Crashed during lap 1
• Gabriel Bortoleto – Crashed during lap 46
• Liam Lawson – Crashed during lap 47
• Oliver Bearman – Didn’t crash; finished last
• Andrea Kimi Antonelli – Finished 4th!

Overall, the race had its starts and stops (due to all the crashes) and the rain meant everyone was at something less than full speed. It was kind of a crummy season opener, but it was interesting. Mercedes finished 3/4; is Mercedes back?

And round 2 was on to China. Due to the timing, I did not watch this race live. (And I didn’t watch any of the Sprint Qualifying, Sprint Race, or Qualifying, which I will generally watch if they’re convenient.)

Lewis Hamilton won the sprint. Is Lewis back? Lando Norris started the sprint in 6th and finished 8th. Does he still not know how to start a race? Antonelli finished the sprint 7th, possibly locking up rookie of the year already.

Then Oscar Piastri got his first career pole, and four different teams qualified in the top six. Isack Hadjar was the top qualifying rookie (assuming he would actually go on to start the race), but Bearman, Doohan, Bortoleto, and Lawson would be the bottom four.

And then… a Formula One race happened.

When people complain about Formula One, they usually complain about things like “The races are boring” (and they kind of are; it’s ultimately cars going in a circle, but there are pit stops, cars locking up or running wide, and then the whole thing only takes about 90 minutes) or “the races aren’t competitive” (and… yeah, when you let the teams design their own cars, some of the cars are gonna be shit).

And that sort of happened here. The cars that started on the grid as 1/2/3/4/5/6 finished in positions 1/3/2/4/6/5. If you watch a race just to see who wins, then sure, an F1 race probably isn’t your deal. But there are more stories in a race than just who wins. Oscar Piastri won from pole. Yawn. But that was his first career pole. Lando finished second after starting third. He had to pass Max Verstappen on the first lap (something that, last year, happened the other way around way more). Both Ferraris looked good. Then they ran into each other, but the damage didn’t seem to impact either car’s race. Then they both got disqualified. (Which was notable on its own; it was the first EVER Ferrari double disqualification, and the first double for any team since 2019, and the first 3-car disqualification (Pierre Gasly was also disqualified) since 2004.)

Maybe it does look like we have a single dominant team. But that team isn’t Red Bull or Mercedes. (And Red Bull is looking like a one-car team as long as they keep developing a car for Max instead of for the team.) And maybe we have a single dominant driver (not Max Verstappen), but a 1st and 2nd in two races isn’t necessarily an indication yet, and George Russell (who I don’t even think I’ve mentioned yet) finished 3rd in both races. (And Max got a 2nd and a 4th.)

Formula One is fun. Each race isn’t wire-to-wire excitement, but there’s always something. And for as terrible as a… how many races? Twenty-four!?

For as many races as there are to go (too many), more stories will develop. Is Mercedes back? Is Lewis back? Will Red Bull find a second driver? Will any of the rookies besides Antonelli accomplish anything?

The Formula One season is long, and boring, and grueling, and exciting, but above all, it’s fine.

In the various texts around the site, I mention that one of the categories of things I frequently describe as “fine” is board games. There are a few reasons for that.

The primary is that there are too many. Ones that truly delight are few and far between, and when they do, they’re board games. They’re good for a few hours of entertainment at a time. If you play them regularly, like I do, then hundreds, if not thousands of them stack up.

Boardgamegeek.com gives the following guidance for their rating system:

Given that system, I don’t think I’ve ever played a 10. I’m not sure I could even call something a 9 on this scale. “Always want to play” is hard – there are thousands of games. I would be willing to play most of them, but moods change.

Of the games I own, the “best” ones top out at 8. I like them. I’ll suggest them or ask if I should bring them, or if people ask me to bring them, I will do so. I would put John Company: Second Edition at 8, but it’s heavy. The weight isn’t for most crowds, and the subject matter definitely isn’t, either. More accessibly, I might call Kutna Hora an 8. That’s more likely to make it to the table because it’s lighter, and also, everyone I’ve played it with has liked it, too.

7 and 6 are “most” games. Obviously not the actual majority of games, but of the “hobbyist” board games I’ve played and play regularly, “I would play this again” is usually my reaction. (I frequently don’t actually play again, though, because in a friend group that collectively owns thousands of games and continually acquires new ones, there’s always something I’ve never seen before that turns up.) All the classics are probably here; Catan, Carcassone, Power Grid, etc.

Some fall to 5. In my personal ratings on BGG, things like Codaand Hex Hex are 5s. (Interestingly enough, the site-wide ratings for both are closer to 6.)

Below that, games become “bad”. But take a look at the descriptions. 4 is “not good … but could be talked into it on occasion.” Now, I can be talked into a lot of games. I’d put the bad party games here, like Cards Against Humanity. I’d probably also put Munchkin (generally regarded as a very bad game) here, too. I’ll almost never “want” to play it, but if the right people ask (or I’m drunk enough), sure.

3 is “likely won’t play” but “could be convinced” and then closed with just “Bad.” Given that descriptor, I’d probably put Monopoly here (assuming we’re playing rules as written, so it eventually does end). Everyone hates Monopoly. It’s bad. F-tier. But it still rates a 3 out of 10. (That’s not to say a 3 out of 10 is remotely good.)

In my life, I have played exactly one game that I would actually say was “completely annoying” and that I “won’t play this ever again”. In fact, I like to tell people about it, because I had significantly higher expectations for it. It’s Firefly: the Game. We played it less than once. (We didn’t finish it.) And on BGG, the current site-wide rating is… SEVEN POINT FOUR?! The average gamer is usually willing to play this? I will just about always suggest against it. Often when it’s not even brought up.

Anyway, rather than get into specific games, my main point is that, on that scale, where 10 is the platonic ideal of a game; one you always want to play and don’t think that will ever change (meaning you’ll never supersede it with newer, which is hard when dozens, if not hundreds of new games come out yearly), “good” goes down to 7, and “yeah, I guess I would play this sometimes” goes down to THREE.

So yeah, there are too many games. A few are great. Many are good. Some are bad. They’re all fine.

Every year around this time, the Gen Con housing portal opens up. Some years ago, they changed the system so that instead of just first-come first-served at Noon on Sunday, every badgeholder is assigned a time somewhere between Noon and whenever all the times are done. The “best” rooms are still gone by 1, and the rest generally not much later than that, but that’s what happens at a convention of 70,000 attendees.

I’ve been attending Gen Con since 2012, and while I’ve had several hotel rooms that were farther than I’d have liked, or booked under unusual arrangements, but I’ve always had one. It’s always possible to stay somewhere, and usually relatively close by. This year is no exception.

Actually, this year I got what I generally consider my favorite hotel, where all my con friends hang out. The room will be a little cramped, but should be fine for crashing at night.

Now, just to wait the 5 months until the con.

As noted in the Q&A of this page (and eventually in the About page), the site was named because my opinion of things is generally “It’s fine.”  I thought of the name several months ago, when things were maybe “ominous” or perhaps “scary” but people seemed like they were maybe “cautiously optimistic” (not “optimistic” in like “things will be good” but more in the sense of “they won’t be as bad as I’m imagining”) or more likely “expecting bad, but not like the absolute worst”.  Flash forward to now, where we live not only in the worst timeline, but also the dumbest and everything is most definitely not fine.  And now I own this domain name (for at least the next year).

However, I am still cautiously optimistic.  I still fear that things will get worse before they get better, and if you’re part of the LGBTQ community, part of the BIPOC community, a woman, an immigrant, or really, part of any other marginalized or underrepresented group, you probably have serious concerns, and you are not wrong to do so.

My “optimism” (if you can really call it that, as I’ll explain) isn’t necessarily that everything is going to be sunshine and rainbows.  Almost certainly not.  However, for better and for worse, our country (and honestly, the whole world now, and probably just capitalism in general) is pretty good at solving problems, but only when they become truly existential in nature.  We can’t try to solve, say, climate change, because it’s expensive and number has to go up, but everybody being dead makes number go down, so we won’t let that happen.  (It’s why Costco isn’t rolling over and dumping their DEI initiatives like everyone else; they realize, not that diversity and inclusion are morally good (they are), but that casting as wide a net as possible for customers and employees is just good for business.)

Not that we should just trust capitalism to get us out of this, because while “number go up” might keep us alive, it certainly won’t help.

What will help is the innate nature of people to survive and aid in the survival of others.  Obviously, not everyone has that, and it will be difficult to try to attend to everybody while taking care of yourself.  But that’s okay, because there are a lot of us.  So first, ensure your own safety and survival, by whatever means necessary.  If it means just lying low, then do that.  And if it means ordering grey market pharmaceuticals off the dark net, then do that.  (And there will be people providing them.)  And if it means agitating, protesting, marching, rabblerousing, etc., then go for it.  (Don’t try to make your own life worse, but if you’re in a situation where that’s the only way, then find a group and go for it.)  Then, when you’re safe, you can help others.  (Whether that’s through money, time, food, security – whatever you have that you don’t need that someone else does.)

Personally, I don’t really have perspective on how bad things are right now.  They sound awful, and they don’t sound like they’re improving, and I’m admittedly in a position of relative privilege.  Regardless of what my career prospects look like for the immediate future (probably fine, and that’s not just me committing to the bit), I know I don’t have to worry about not being able to update my passport or register to vote or use a public restroom.  I’m not on any psychological medications (although maybe I should be).  I don’t remember the last time I got a vaccine (besides COVID-19 and the flu, which will probably still be available, albeit maybe not subsidized anymore?)  Basically, when I look ahead, and see things as being “fine, eventually”, I can’t tell if that’s because they’ll actually be fine, or just fine for me.  (Or if I’m just completely wrong.  That’s possible.)

All we can do is keep on keepin’ on.  Take care of yourself.  And each other.

As for me, this will (hopefully) be the last time this site talks about any of this.  There are plenty of people out there more qualified and better equipped to do it, and if you want that stuff, you know where to find it.  I just want to get on with the nonsense I had in mind when I came up with the site.  Out there, things are on fire and people are getting hurt, but here…

…Everything Is Fine.

Watch this space for updates. Things are in the works.