| Es reiten die Toten so schnell | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Sopor Aeternus & the Ensemble of Shadows |
| Cover: | Soporesreiten.jpg |
| Released: | 2003 |
| Genre: | Darkwave, classical |
| Length: | 65:33[1] |
| Label: | Apocalyptic Vision |
| Producer: | Sopor Aeternus, John A. Rivers |
| Prev Title: | Songs from the Inverted Womb |
| Prev Year: | 2000 |
| Next Title: | La Chambre d'Echo |
| Next Year: | 2004 |
Es reiten die Toten so schnell (or: the Vampyre sucking at his own Vein) (German: "The Dead Ride So Fast") is the seventh album[2] by darkwave act Sopor Aeternus and the Ensemble of Shadows, and was released in 2003.[1] A double vinyl edition and an A5-sized boxed set edition was released, in limited quantities of 666 and 1,999 copies, respectively. The double vinyl edition came with a poster, T-shirt, postcards, communion wafers and "authenticated" graveyard soil.
For Es reiten die Toten so schnell, Anna-Varney Cantodea went back to her demo tape of the same name and re-recorded all of its songs; the first seven tracks of this album consist of the demo tape in its original sequence. The rest of the album features re-recordings of the bonus tracks that were included on the first Sopor Aeternus album, Ich töte mich..., along with a handful of new songs. "Birth - Fiendish Figuration", Sopor Aeternus' signature song from their first album, appears again in its fourth incarnation on a record. The original version of "Reprise" was a spoken word piece featuring a line from the bridge of "Dead Souls".
John A. Rivers, producer for Swell Maps, Dead Can Dance and Love and Rockets, was brought in to oversee production on Es reiten...[2] The album was recorded in England,[3] as opposed to Sopor Aeternus' home country of Germany.[2]