TIAMAT – The Astral Sleep Gatefold-LP (Beer Black Galaxy)

Limited to 250 copies.

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 the hugely overrated Clouds.