PbHg: Type O Negative-Life is Killing Me

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Well, I've had this written for a while, so I figured I'd post it, what with me being all giddy about seeing them live on Monday. With any luck, you (the reader) will find it informative, charming, and eloquent.

 

Type O Negative is one of those bands you either love or hate. One can appreciate the smooth riffs, and homage to Black Sabbath and The Beatles, as long as you keep your tongue in your cheek, because every word in every song reeks of that sense of humor. Their formula revolves around making fun of gothic posers while being worshipped by gothic posers, all at the same time being gothic posers themselves.

 

So, in that respect, they’re nothing to be taken too seriously…

 

However, they have a distinct sound that only they can do, and well-thought lyrics that manage to be darkly comedic and GOOD all at the same time. Thus, they raise my eyebrows more than any “joke band.”

 

Their newest release,

 

 

 

sticks with that same formula, but manages to branch out a bit on its own.

 

Here’s a tracklist for you to peruse at your leisure:

 

1. Thir13teen

2. I Don't Wanna Be Me

3. Less Than Zero (<0)

4. Todd's Ship Gods (Above all things)

5. I Like Goils

6. ...A Dish Better Served Coldly

7. How Could She?

8. Life Is Killing Me

9. Nettie

10. (We Were) Electrocute

11. IYDKMIGTHTKY (Gimme That)

12. Angry Inch

13. Anesthesia

14. Drunk In Paris

15. The Dream Is Dead

 

The album starts out a little differently than most other Type O releases, which are perpetually kicked off by a pointless track, which varies from silence, to a woman in the throes of ecstasy, to amplifier hum. “Thir13teen,” on the other hand, is a nice crunchy little ditty that serves as a decent warm-up, which is all it’s intended to be. “Drunk in Paris” serves a similar purpose later, separating the CD from what was originally planned to be the title track.

 

“I Don’t Wanna Be Me” instantly kicks off as a throwback to Slow, Deep, and Hard, with the quicker punk styling, only recorded with immaculate clarity and presence like World Coming Down. In that sense, it doesn’t work so well to me, because their aggressive material comes across better when it’s grittier. It also cuts off halfway through and segues like a train wreck to the sound of footsteps, and a muted train going over rough tracks, coincidentally enough. Cut off that two minutes of nonsense which doesn’t really do anything, and you’ve got a single in the same sense of “Black No. 1.”

 

Another thing they could have done to make it work, would be to run the rhythmic sound of the train tracks immediately into “Life is Killing Me” which starts out with footsteps and the solemn beep of a heart monitor. They actually did this on the Advance CD version of the release, but not the standard one, which was a bad decision, I think. The title track itself has a pretty similar style overall, aside from the punk riffs. A few great lines, too:

 

“What is the link, between these crafts?

Doctors and thieves, they both wear masks.

Overpaid meat magicians.”

 

“Doctors Jekyll or Mengele

And your face too, they’re just a blur

Can’t improve my condition.”

 

It is definitely one of the better tracks on the CD.

 

“Less than Zero” is another case of them getting a hard-on for the sitar effect, and abusing it, like “Can’t Lose You” off of Bloody Kisses. Not terribly special.

 

“Todd’s Ship Gods” and “Nettie” go together, as both tracks are more emotional, and are seemingly about lead vocalist Pete Steele’s parents. Great vocal delivery on both tracks.

 

From “Todd’s Ship Gods”-

 

“Grease, sweat, coffee, faded shipyard pictures

Giant living there I used to know.

Author of the Testosterone Scriptures

Where did you go?”

 

From “Nettie”-

 

“Responding not with anger but a prayer

Heaven's just Southwest of Cobble Hill

True, I am the son of an Angel

Maternally, not one woman compares”

 

“A Dish Best Served Coldly,” “The Dream is Dead,” “IYDKMIGTHTKY (Gimme that)” and “Anesthesia” are four tracks that definitely sound ‘new’. There’s certainly some similarities to material on October Rust and World Coming Down involved in all four. To describe it even further, they sound a lot like the unreleased World Coming Down tracks that showed up on Least Worst Of.

 

The latter of those is by FAR the best song on the album, and contains my favorite lyrics on the whole CD. The second half of the song in particular:

 

“I don't need love

 

Are a thousand tears worth a single smile?

When you give an inch, will they take a mile?

Longing for the past but dreading the future

If not being used, well then you're a user and a loser

 

World renowned failure at both death and life

Given nothingness, purgatory blight

To run and hide, a cowardly procedure

Options exhausted, except for anesthesia

 

I don't feel anything.”

 

“How Could She?” is just Steele fantasizing about female television personalities ranging from Wilma Flintstone to Lt. Uhura….Cute, but way too long for what it is.

 

“(We Were) Electrocute” is just Steele bitching about a woman he fell for back in the 80’s. Not bad, but nothing they haven’t touched on before. I think they acknowledge that fact with the line ”To make the point again is moot.”

 

“Angry Inch” and “I Like Goils” are two REALLY fun tracks, the former being about a botched sex change operation, and the latter being whimsical gay-bashing that no one could possibly get offended by, due to how over the top it is. Neither song is more than 4 minutes long, nor do they try to do anything important, or even facetiously pretend to do anything important, which is a nice change of pace on the CD. Apparently, “Angry Inch” is a cover of Hedwig, whatever the hell that may be.

 

“My sex-change operation got botched

My guardian angel fell asleep on the watch

Now all I got is a Barbie doll crotch

I got an angry inch”

 

…

 

I can’t possibly top that with anything, so I’ll cut right to the conclusion:

 

If I had to grade this album overall, I’d give it a B+, as it ranks about in the middle as far as Type O Negative goes, which is definitely better than average, but not exactly spectacular.

 

Fairly short fairly accurate blurb before I call it quits: If you like Type O, you’ll like this. If you’re not familiar, start with one of their other albums. If you don’t like Type O, you’ll hate this.

 

Type O Negative Offical Website

[Guest EL BRUJ0]

Cool review, Agent. I'm probably going to pick this up tomorrow. A couple of questions for you:

 

What does PbHg stand for?

 

If you had to rate the following Type O Negative albums, in order from least to most favorite, how would you rank them?

 

Slow Deep and Hard

 

Bloody Kisses

 

October Rust

 

World Coming Down

 

Life is Killing Me

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Pb and Hg are the chemical symbols for Lead and Mercury, which are both heavy metals. I listen to a pretty varied array of bands and genres, but metal's what I know best, so naturally, I'm more inclined to do reviews of it.

 

My Type O Negative album power rankings:

 

1. World Coming Down

2. Slow Deep and Hard

3. October Rust

4. Life is Killing me

5. Bloody Kisses

6. Origin of the Feces

 

Personally, I think Bloody Kisses while still being a good album, has waaaay too much stupid shit on it, and throwaway tracks. It was still an important album for the band, but not nearly as focused as their other material.

[EL BRUJ0 0]

Nice nod to the chemist thing.

 

I'm on my third listen of the new album and so far so good:

 

Here are my rankings of their ablums, excluding the new one and Origin of The Feces.

 

4. Slow Deep and Hard

While certainly not a bad album, the reason for it's low rankings is that I can't connect with the album, lyrically, as I used to during my teenage years, when I had a lot more hate in me.

 

I think that track six is totally unnecessary and track five went on twice as long as it needed to. Also, the second track seems out of place on this disc, given the context of the remaining four tracks; but those four tracks are required listening to anyone that's ever been depressed of experienced emotional problems of the women kind.

 

3. World Coming Down

The four non-songs track (1,3,6,10) work real well within the album and the last track is my favorite cover that they have done, however there's one song that made me rank this below Bloody Kisses and that's number twelve. I dislike both the vocals and lyrics, but otherwise the music is okay. Had that track been taken off, the album might have made number one on my list and it certainly would've pushed back this album:

 

2. Bloody Kisses

Now like the previous album, there was a track on this disc that soured my listening pleasure and that would be the title track. I said was, because I've since grown to tolerate that track. While I still don't enjoy it as much as the other songs, I don't skip it like I do Hallow's Eve. I'm curious as to what you thought were stupid shit and throw awaytracks, since everything else was good in my opinion.

 

1. October Rust

This album hooked me on the first listen and I'm still firmly attached to it's gothic lure. There is absolutely no song on here that I don't enjoy and even the three filler tracks (1, 2, 15) are too short to be considered a nuisance. This is the one album I would recommend to anyone interested in Type O Negative.