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The Astral Sleep is the second studio album by Swedish band Tiamat, originally released in 1991 by Century Media. A crucial record in the band's evolution, it saw Tiamat expanding beyond the raw death metal approach of their debut into a much darker, more atmospheric and progressive form of death/doom metal.
Led by vocalist and guitarist Johan Edlund, the band incorporated keyboards, acoustic passages, unusual guitar textures and an increasingly melancholic atmosphere into their heavy sound. The result is an album that stands at the crossroads of early death/doom and the gothic metal style that Tiamat would explore more fully on subsequent releases.
Tracks such as Mountain Of Doom, Ancient Entity, The Southernmost Voyage and A Winter Shadow combine crushing riffs with eerie keyboards, melodic guitar passages and a distinctive occult atmosphere. The instrumental opening and closing pieces, Neo Aeon and The Seal, give the album an almost ritualistic framework.
Recorded and mixed at Woodhouse Studio in Dortmund, The Astral Sleep remains an important early-'90s European extreme metal album and one of the key recordings in Tiamat's transition from their death metal beginnings toward the atmospheric and gothic sound for which they later became famous.
Track Listing:
Side A
Side B
