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‘It’s all fan-driven. People are in absolute raptures’: how mysterious masked rockers Sleep Token took over metal

They just headlined Download festival and their latest album went to No 1 in the US and UK – so why is Britain’s biggest metal band in a generation so hated by some?

They perform live wearing masks, hoods and body paint to conceal their identities and promote a fictional mythology: it’s too sprawling and complex to explain here – one fan has apparently produced a 35,000-word thesis on the subject – but it involves the band being a mouthpiece for a deity called Sleep. Their initial success was adjacent to the progressive metal subgenre, a world of complex rhythms, lengthy songs and impressive technical proficiency: they are big on a sound called djent, which essentially means tricky riffs played on muted, low-pitch guitars. Photograph: Adam Ross Williams/Download festivalFor his part, Morton thinks their success is evidence that “tribalism is a thing of the past”: as he points out, elsewhere at this year’s Download, McFly – a manufactured 00s pop band with a vaguely punk-ish lilt – are headlining a stage, which would have been unthinkable at the height of their fame.

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