ASTRAL SLEEP presents:
We Are Already Living In The End Of Times
(Out on 21. April 2023 via Saarni Records)
With the previous album Astral Doom Musick (Saarni Records 2020), Astral Sleep established their accurate genre definition as the namesake of the said album. With the new, 4th full-length, the band continues to evolve within these musical terms, but this time with a direction towards more Doom and Gloom, less Astral and Magical. The new album’s gargantuan soundscape resonates the immensity of the apocalypse portrayed. Beneath the waves of crushing guitars, rumble the drums and the bass, like volcanoes that erupt under oceans, and above glide the ethereal lead guitars and synths, as the powerful vocals shatter the skies and tremble the earth..
We Are Already Living In The End Of Times witnesses the apocalypse as it manifests, and explores the thoughts and feelings that emerge in the face of the Doom. Why did this happen? What can we do about it? How should we feel about it? Should we care? Does it even matter? The album takes it path through powerful scenes of destruction, loss, and despair, but also of retribution, self-realization, and existential enlightenment.
The cover art for the album was made by the renowned artist Mark Cooper, an insanely talented designer of tons of album-covers. This epic piece depicts an apocalyptic event where the last concert ever to happen on earth is about to take place, running on the last fumes of the broken-down factory.
As of 21.4.2023, the full album is available for purchase in digital, CD, and vinyl formats.
The album contains six songs:
We Are Already Living In The End Of Times
Torment In Existence
Invisible Flesh
The Legacies
Time Is
Status Of The Soul
(album runtime 46:27)
The remaining four songs from the album are each independently released in the streaming services on monthly basis, until the sixth song releases in August 2023.
Astral Sleep: Biography
Astral Sleep hails from Finland, Tellus. The group has wreaked havoc on the metal genre since 2005.
Astral Sleep's music fuses various musical styles into an unique entity dubbed "Astral Doom Musick". The boundaries of different sub-genres of Doom are ripped apart, mingled with pieces of jazz, psych-rock, and other styles of metal, and sown back together into the monstrosities that they are. Astral Sleep's mission is finding eternal bliss in the middle of this world, on its trajectory towards Doom.
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We Are Already Living In The End of Times (2023)
Full length (CD & VINYL)
Saarni Records
Subconsciousnesslesskoe (2015)
EP (Digital)
Independent
Angel (2010)
EP (CD)
Solitude Productions
S/T (2005)
Demo (CD + Cassette)
Independent
Astral Doom Musick (2020)
Full length (VINYL)
Saarni Records
Visions (2012)
Full length (CD)
Solitude Productions
Unawakening (2008)
Full length (CD)
Solitude Productions
Press quotes
We Are Already Living In The End Of Times:
"Led by vocals and intertwining layers of guitar-bred misery, Astral Sleep's fourth album broods and mourns our present circumstances. The band's brand of psychedelic doom completely sidesteps most others in this genre, opting for a dreamlike atmosphere that's both crushing and imaginative."
--Ted Nubel, Invisible Oranges
"We Are Already Living in the End of Times‘ never feels cheaply defeatist or absurdist in its long walk but rather focused on seriously parsing its thoughts and enchanting the listener with a strong set of fairly original extreme/psychedelic doom hymnals along their path." "A high recommendation." 80/100
"If you’re looking for a doom record that touches all bases of the genre, keeping a major heaviness intact while inspiring melancholy and moments of rage as well, then look no further. ‘We Are Already Living in the End of Times’ is the perfect record for our modern world, a constant reminder of the sad and declining beauty of our world as the inexorable crawl of extinction comes upon us. Fortunately I suppose we have bands like Astral Sleep to make the end times sounds good at least. An essential purchase."
Sandre the Giant in The Killchain
"This song is so heavy that it almost physically hurts."
Thomas M on "Torment in Existence" in Metal Division Magazine.
Astral Doom Musick:
"Really great album for the coming autumn days!!"
Deaf Forever #37
“I like Astral Doom Musick also in Spring, and therefore give it 8 out of 10 HELLFIRE-points.”
https://www.hellfire-magazin.de/astral-sleep-astral-doom-music/
“Astral Sleep are at their most refined on this third full-length"
grizzlybutts.com/2020/05/29/astral-sleep-astral-doom-musick-2020-review/
"Astral Sleep are magnificent, and this is their greatest triumph."
www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/astral-sleep-musick
"Astral Doom Musick, is a solid slab of psychedelic doom"
www.metal-temple.com/site/catalogues/entry/reviews/cd_3/a_2/astral-sleep-astral.htm
"Great Doom Metal record!"
necromance.eu/astral-sleep-fin-astral-doom-musick/
Previous albums:
Visions in doom-metal.com (album of the month 3/2013):
Angel in metalcrypt.com:
Unawakening in metal-archives.com:
"Unawakening is truly original. It is dark, gloomy and a bit creepy, sometimes psychedelic, always disturbing"
S/T in archaicmetallurgy.com: