Season of Mist will reissue Sleep of the Angels, the fifth full-length album by Greek extreme metal duo ROTTING CHRIST. Originally released in January 1999 on Century Media, the album is presented on vinyl, across ten tracks and a full runtime of 41 minutes.
Sleep of the Angels represents the furthest point from ROTTING CHRIST‘s black metal origins—a record defined by melodic weight, brooding atmosphere, and a gloomy romanticism that remains striking in its internal coherence. At its centre is the interplay between Sakis Tolis‘s heavily chorded guitar work and a constant, gauzy keyboard presence that lends the whole record an almost ecclesiastical quality. Vocals shift between a characteristic snarl and a lower, whispered clean register, sustaining an intimate tension across the album’s runtime. The result is the most gothic metal-focused statement in the band’s ever-evolving discography: measured and darkly melodic throughout.
The Sleep of the Angels reissue will be out June 19th via Season of Mist.
The reissue is available on black 12″ vinyl in gatefold and on gold 12″ vinyl with black splatters in gatefold.
Pre-orders are available here.
Guest contributors include Waldemar Sorychta on lead guitar on “Victoriatus” and “You My Flesh,” and vocalist Eddy Kante on the partially German language “Der Perfekte Traum.”
Formed in Athens in 1987, ROTTING CHRIST are one of extreme metal’s most enduring and restlessly shape-shifting acts. By the time Sleep of the Angels was recorded in September 1998, the Tolis brothers had spent three consecutive albums methodically expanding their palette away from the rawness of their early catalogue, toward atmosphere, melody, and a dark romanticism that reached its fullest expression here. The album closed a creative trilogy begun with Triarchy of the Lost Lovers (1996) and continued through A Dead Poem (1997), before the band pivoted again toward heavier, more industrial-inflected territory on Khronos (2000).
Sleep of the Angels track listing:
1. Cold Colours (03:36)
2. After Dark I Feel (04:32)
3. Victoriatus (04:02)
4. Der Perfekte Traum (04:28)
5. You My Flesh (04:36)
6. The World Made End (03:00)
7. Sleep the Sleep of Angels (04:35)
8. Delusions (03:37)
9. Imaginary Zone (03:45)
10. Thine Is the Kingdom (04:59)
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.