A 681 bars-long breakdown

🔖 Drumming

Guitar Pro

Sleep Token is the real deal

I’m not going to talk about Even in Arcadia, their latest album. It’s a banger and the drumming from II is insane. But I wanted to build a drumming system around the insane, syncopated drum pattern in the breakdown of The Summoning at 1’41”.

The breakdown

It’s not rocket science, but it’s still brutally effective:

• Right hand plays quarter notes on a nasty china cymbal.
• Left hand plays as-hard-as-possible rimshots on the snare drum.
• Feet play syncopated sixteenth notes on a double-pedal or two bass drum.

Building a system around this pattern

Hands are easy of course, but the bass-drum does everything here. We’ll try some rules to keep the same feel but create more variations:

Right hand rules:

• China cymbal hits on every quarter note (beats 1, 2, 3, and 4)

Left hand rules:

• Snare drum rimshot on beat 3

Bass Drum Rules:

• Must contain at least 5 consecutive sixteenth notes on bass drum
• Bass drum hits can only start on 1st or 3rd sixteenth note of any beat

• For 2nd and 4th sixteenth notes:

  • Can only have a bass drum if preceded by another bass drum hit
  • A hit on 2nd sixteenth must be followed by a hit on 3rd sixteenth
  • A hit on 4th sixteenth must be followed by another bass hit except on beat 2's 4th sixteenth that already leads to the snare on beat 3

And that’s how you get…

A 681 bars-long breakdown 😈. Enjoy, you metalheads 🤘. Download the Guitar Pro file, play it through, and see if your calves survive. You’ve been warned!