(Hypebot) — Masked mystique, crossover sounds, and successful streaming strategies: Sleep Token and Turnstile are among the bands pioneering a genre-bending rock resurgence.
Turnstile and Sleep Token Lead A Genre-Bending Rock Resurgence
by Harry Levin via Chartmetric
Most weeks, the cover of Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist exhibits the faces of huge pop stars. This week (July 21), pop wunderkind Alex Warren is on the cover to mark the release of his sophomore album, You’ll Be Alright, Kid. However, on May 10, the millions of avid consumers of the playlist didn’t see a face at all. Instead, they saw the gothic mask of Vessel, the anonymous lead singer of the cryptic alternative hard rock band, Sleep Token (Chartmetric rank 2,159).
Since their 2023 breakout, Take Me Back To Eden, Sleep Token has amassed an extremely devoted fanbase, who launched the band’s Spotify monthly listeners from 665k to 9.8 million in two years and sent their 2025 album, Even In Arcadia, to their first #1 on the coveted Billboard 200 chart.
Spring 2025 was big season for hard rock. Two weeks prior to Sleep Token’s top spot, Ghost(CM rank 1,886), another prominent metal/hard rock act known for elaborate costuming and anonymous presentation, had their first #1 on the top 200 chart with their album, Skeletá. The record cleared 86k equivalent album sales in the first week.
This consecutive success is especially notable given the general lack of rock acts to break into the mainstream over the last few years. Prior to Ghost, the last similar act to reach #1 was the 1970s stalwarts AC/DC for their 2020 album, Power Up. A clear sign of the permanent nostalgia ingrained into the genre — the unflinching belief that the best rock that will ever be written is from an era long gone.
But rock is a resilient art, and bands like Sleep Token, Ghost, and Baltimore’s alternative punk outfit, Turnstile (CM rank 3,047), are proving the lasting value of the guitar-heavy sound through a fresh dose of intensity.
“We’re absolutely seeing growth in the sense that the major, wider culture is becoming more aware of artists within the genre and the genre itself,” says Bob Johnsen, President of 5B Artists + Media. 5B is a driving force in hard rock and metal, representing masked legends like Slipknot (CM rank 604) as well as exciting newer acts like BABYMETAL (CM rank 3,815), who landed on Spotify’s Top 50 Viral Global chart last year with their single, “RATATATA,” a collaboration with the dance/metal hybrid act, Electric Callboy (CM rank 5,969).
The Top 50 Viral Global chart ranks songs by spikes in plays, shares, and discoveries. Examining the chart demonstrates both the growing appreciation of hard rock and metal, as well as the rising profiles of newer bands.
A Rock Resurgence
In all of 2024, 11 hard rock songs made the list, with most of them coming from established acts like Linkin Park, Misfits, and Bring Me The Horizon. By comparison, from January 1 to June 15, 2025, the same number of songs made the chart, and more than half of them are from bands that formed in the 2010s or later. Sleep Token is the largest presence with four songs, Turnstile has one, Electric Callboy is back with one, and another notable newer hard rock act, Falling In Reverse, has one as well.
Beyond the common characteristics of making hard rock and coming together more recently, they also share another core element that defines this current trend: musical experimentation.
Sleep Token has often dipped into the worlds of hip-hop and electronic throughout their discography. One of the biggest songs on Even In Arcadia is “Caramel,” a crossover between plush reggaeton and heavy guitar passages. Several songs on Turnstile’s new album, NEVER ENOUGH, abandon high-energy distortion and swap it for clean dance beats or mystical flute solos.
This exploration plays very well into current listening habits. Streaming has made every genre more accessible than ever before, so younger listeners are naturally developing more diverse tastes. Plus, these eclectic songs open the opportunity for a larger range of playlist additions. Turnstile’s new wave funk tune “SEEIN’ STARS” made it onto POLLEN, which collates music with a “genre-less” approach to 1.3 million saves. At the time of writing, Sleep Token has three songs on misfits 2.0, which has 815k saves and also features acts that are far from hard rock and metal, such as Rico Nasty, Royal & the Serpent, and Grimes.
“The nature of streaming and the ability to sample and snack on different styles of music — it’s a new world where fans of pop music can decide which metal songs they like. Which metal songs work for the workout, for the drive home from work, etc,” Johnsen says. “Those multiple factors add up to an opening of what the metal fan necessarily can be. It’s much wider now than it’s ever been. [Turnstile and Sleep Token] are going a bit deeper than previous bands. But it’s been a cumulative thing. It’s just gotten more and more inclusive.”
Other acts that are currently making waves in harder styles sprang in popularity after collaborations in different genres. Falling In Reverse combined a hard emo sound with featured artists such as the newfound country idol Jelly Roll and the classic rapper Tech N9ne. Spiritbox (CM rank 8,836), the Canadian metal band, first saw major growth in Spotify monthly listeners after they released “Shivering,” their collaboration with the headlining electronic act, Illenium. The upward trend continued when they worked with Megan Thee Stallion on “Cobra (Rock Remix),” to combine modern rap with power ballad distortion.
The trend is even affecting longer-established metal acts. In 2024, the house music wunderkind, CYRIL, remixed “Sound of Silence” by Disturbed (CM rank 363). The release doubled Disturbed’s monthly listeners, and, at the time of writing, the track has over 517M streams (it’s also worth noting the original track is a cover of Simon & Garfunkel, yet another genre crossover).
“Your playlist of your favorite songs of the week, or the month, or the year might include pop. It might include some R&B. It might include some soundtrack stuff. It might include some hip-hop, and it might include some metal. That’s a new thing, relatively speaking,” Johnsen says, also relating the idea of modern accessibility to social media. “There’s a lot of talk in the overall music business about moments, right? And about social media and the importance of those social media hits. We see that with Slipknot, who are 25 years into their career, having these viral moments. Fans can see what a band is about without necessarily buying records.”
Sleep Token refrains from showing their fans what they’re about personally, but they show their fans what the project is about on multiple levels. The music, their elaborate costumes, and the entire lore-driven universe they have created to coincide with their output are all core factors, and the fans eat it up.
The only interview they have ever given opens a brief glimpse into their world. The unnamed members state, “We are here to serve Sleep and project His message,” suggesting Sleep is some kind of deity. From there, fans have combed over lyrics, cryptic websites, and other minute details related to the band to put together in-depth timelines surrounding the backstory.
“I’m sure there are some hard rock fans that are like, ‘What are these bands doing with masks and cloaks?’ But how many millions of fans do fantasy franchises have? How many different pieces of popular culture thrive on that sort of lore?” says Jason Lipshutz, Executive Director of Music at Billboard. “Sleep Token speaks in code, gives their fans mysteries to solve and puzzle pieces and lyrics to decipher in terms of an extended universe. Even a Marvel fan is going to connect with that.”
A comparison to Marvel suggests a certain mainstream, corporate quality, but Lipshutz goes on to describe Sleep Token’s methods as the “absolute opposite” of corporatization.
“These artists are only presenting the music and the lore around the music. Not doing commercials. It’s less mainstream accessible,” Lipshutz continues. “On the one hand, you have all this elaborate backstory. On the other you have unadulterated messaging to fans, which fans appreciate.”
Johnsen has been working with Slipknot since the beginning of the band, and their masked presentation follows that same intention:
“It wasn’t some calculated move for the sake of theatrics. The masks were an extremely conscious choice. The masks were something that would make it about the music,” Johnsen says, further emphasizing that the music matters most. “You’re nothing unless you have songs. I don’t think [masks] are a cheap excuse and a way to be able to jump the line against artists that don’t wear a mask or don’t have great theatrics. You need the songs ultimately.”
From a standpoint of pure song quality, these hard rock bands are receiving their established marks. Songs on Turnstile’s breakout album, GLOW ON (2021), got three Grammy nominations in such a way that demonstrates their diverse approach: one for Best Rock Song (“BLACKOUT”), one for Best Rock Performance (“HOLIDAY”), and one for Best Metal Performance (“BLACKOUT”). The album also received “Best New Music” from Pitchfork, and the band’s Spotify monthly listeners increased by over 2000% since its release, rising from 198k in May 2021 to 3.6 million today.
It’s fitting the Ghost song that’s named after a character of great musical talent with an obfuscated identity is one of their most successful. They and Sleep Token are, in actuality, continuing rock’s long history of mystique. Ringo Starr took up the name Billy Shears to lead the fictional outfit, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Furthermore, just as the Beatles were experimenting with their music at that point in their career, Sleep Token, Ghost, and Turnstile are doing the same. This level of experimentation takes courage. And when it’s done authentically, it reaps great rewards, as these bands have seen in their rapidly growing fanbases. Whether they’ll reach the same status as The Beatles remains to be seen, but now these heavier bands are exhibiting all the telltale signs of impending superstardom in 2025.
