TIAMAT - The Astral Sleep LP (Smoke Black Vinyl)

The Astral Sleep may be Tiamat's sophomore album, but it feels like their third or fourth for how well the songs are put together and form a cohesive statement. I'd chalk it up to them having to make up for the embarrassing debut album that was immediately, if not retroactively, outpaced by anyone in the nascent death metal scene. This one fits in the death/doom category, yet brimming with enough occultism and obscurity to almost add "blackened" to the description. There's real darkness to be found on the Astral Sleep, with a scant sprinkling of the romanticism that was to follow on Clouds.

Given the unusual nature of this album I don’t expect it will be a welcoming listen for everyone. It’s not quite an uneasy album, really. Indeed, this is reflected in popular opinion as The Astral Sleep’s reputation is something of a dormant one as people tend to favour later Tiamat albums or heap praise on other more conventional Swedish classics (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Perhaps The Astral Sleep has proven to be an influence on other bands who sought to re-imagine extreme metal but very few of them put out anything as unique or moving as this work (often producing monstrosities given their poor handiwork) . Simply put this is a unique listening experience; subtle, but riffy, gloomy yet never monotonous and always captivating. Once you’ve been drawn in by those ghostly keys there’s really no way out.