German Import | This is the "standard jewel box release" which has a 16 page booklet of lyrics and an affordable price! : ) | Recorded at John Rivers ' legendary Woodbine-Studio, where such well-known acts like Dead Can Dance had been produced, the German-based Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble of Shadows have created with their new concept-album another milestone of the Gothic/Avant-garde.

Visually embedded in the impressive photographic imagery of Joachim Luetke , these highly exceptional artists have created an unique and theatrical descend into the frightening underworlds of the human soul, where terrible monsters are on the rampage, and dreadful, starving ghosts are attacking the thoughtless wanderer from behind, keeping him in their fatal embrace, forever feeding off him in the all-devouring darkness.

Endowed with a perfect sense for drama and effect, the music of SOPOR AETERNUS is blending the classical genre with the attitude of the contemporary retro-ism of the 80's underground-culture, combining complex string- and orchestral arrangements with the weird peculiarity of the very own stylistic device; being deadly serious, while at the same time having a twinkle in the eye.

Inspired by Butoh and Kabuki , they are fusing Chinese fiddles and Wagnerian trombones with Death Rock drums and highly complicated bass or percussion rhythms, combining slavish dulcimers, tubas and recorders with the omnipresent death-knells, in order to build the beautifully scaring background for a unique voice, that is sometimes croaking with the malicious falsetto of a dying animal, sometimes reciting suicide-mantras with the sonorous baritone of an old man, only to turn into the screaming lament of a living corpse, bearing witness to the horrible atrocities of nightly visitors.

With Es reiten die Toten so schnell – or: The Vampyre sucking at his own Vein Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble of Shadows have produced a most powerful and genre-bending classic that should quickly make its arrival into everybody's record-collection!