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" graveyardsoil.
For Es reiten die Toten so schnell, Anna-Varney Cantodea went back to her demo tapeof 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".
