Pick up Type O vinyl, merch, posters and more over at Revolver's shop.
During their tumultuous time as a band, Type O Negative delivered seven goth-metal albums that could each be considered a classic in their own right. These Four Dicks from Brooklyn, led by the inimitable Peter Steele, had a one-of-a-kind sound with the power to capture ears, tug at hearts and heat up loins sometimes for the span of 10-minute-plus songs.
Although there are some undeniable highs within their catalog, the nature of their music (extremely long albums, a consistent sound from their scrappy start to their tragic end) makes consensus on their best hard to achieve within their devotees.
With that in mind, we asked our Steele-loving readers to pick their single favorite Type O album. The top five vote-getters are ranked accordingly below.
5. Life Is Killing Me
Life Is Killing Me wasn't a Type O smash out the gate. The 2003 album arrived four years after the band's previous opus, World Coming Down, and 10 years after their breakthrough, Bloody Kisses, and the Drab Four were no longer the cutting-edge MTV darlings they were a decade prior.
But in the last 20 years, Life Is Killing Me has become one of Type O's most beloved releases. "I Don't Wanna Be Me" is by far their most-streamed song on Spotify, and others like "Anesthesia" and "IYDKMIGTHTKY (Gimme That)" have become fan favorites. For good reason. The album whips.
4. Slow, Deep and Hard
Outside of its 1992 companion "fake live" album, The Origin of Feces, Slow, Deep and Hard is Type O Negative at their rawest. The band's 1991 debut begins with a 12-minute screed about one of Steele's unfaithful partners, stuffed with blown-out doom dirges, politically incorrect chants and the so-catchy-you-can't-not-sing-along hook "I know you're fuckin' someone else!"
It's polarizing stuff, and barely recognizable as Type O compared to the romantic goth-metal sound they would soon embrace. But if you can hang with what the Green Man and his crew laid down here, then you're likely a fan for life.
3. Bloody Kisses
Bloody Kisses is indisputably Type O's most iconic album, if only because it's the one with "Black No. 1" and "Christian Woman," two of the band's biggest songs. It wouldn't have been surprising to see it hit the top spot on this list, but we're also not mad that the fans voted Bloody Kisses No. 3.
The highs are soaring ("Summer Breeze," "Set Me on Fire," "Bloody Kisses," the aforementioned singles) but for such a popular metal record it's also oddly disjointed, jostling back and forth between tongue-in-cheek hardcore ragers, goofy interludes and their usual goth-metal stunners. It's our pick for Type O's best, but not the people's.
2. World Coming Down
The band's previous album, October Rust, wasn't the stadium-sized breakout they (and their label) hoped it would be, and instead of giving stardom another shot, World Coming Down was the sound of Type O saying, "Fuck it."
It's by far the heaviest, darkest, most nihilistic and brooding album in their discography, a 74-minute trudge that faces topics like addiction and loss with a head-on bluntness that eschews the campy charm of their previous material.
World Coming Down is so crushing and real that guitarist Kenny Hickey still finds it hard to listen to — though he acknowledges that this is just proof of its power. From the cocaine pain of "White Slavery" to the cataclysmic "Everything Dies," metal bands rarely sound this fucking despondent — and therefore this fucking heavy, both musically and emotionally.
1. October Rust
If there's another Type O record that you think belongs here at No. 1, just know this: October Rust won this contest by a landslide. The band were handed a shit-ton of money to make more of the MTV-dominating singles that elevated Bloody Kisses, and instead Type O delivered their most eclectic, cerebral and unabashedly horny LP.
Sure, "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend" is the closest they ever came to a genuine pop-rock crossover, and the candlelit doom metal of "Love You to Death" is as tuneful as the sweetest moments on Bloody Kisses. But what makes October Rust so enduring are the weird and feral moments: Steele's pledge to do "anything" to make his lover cum in "Be My Druidess," the almost shoegaze-y vocal purrs on "Red Water (Christmas Mourning)" and the perplexing cover of Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl."
October Rust is Type O throwing all of their most ambitious ideas at the wall and erupting with a self-deprecating chuckle when every single of one of them sticks. It was never going to make them mainstream celebrities because they were always too weird, wild and cool for that, but it did make them cult heroes who still own the goth-metal crown all these years later.
