Type O Negative

Dead Again (SPV)
By Martin Popoff

Drugged and destined for death. This is the impression out there worried fans have for our man Pete. Which puts extra gangrenous rot on the Type O Negative world, not that it ever needed extra reason to decay and talk about it. A suspicious multitude of voices and vocal tricks are all over this sprawling 78 minute opus from the laconic ones, but other than that, Dead Again is a typical record of ugly music rancid butter-churned just because they can. Dirges turn simple punk, guitars buzz like they’ve eaten through the cones, time is suspended, the centre cannot hold, or however that goes. Opacity is embraced for a lark, or because Kenny’s nature is to fill the void. There’s no let-up until “September Sun,” an abrasive ballad which reads like Pete’ epitaph. Ad infinitum into a record of evident, accessible green cores slopped in black performances and production choices until yer pulled into the vortex of the band’s half dozen characteristics no one else dare think they can steal. So yeah, there’s lots here, including the Sabbath doom and the dark part of the Beatles, all loaded into the din of the band’s garbage bin. Oh yeah, and the lyrics are amazing, colorful yet to the point, clear and graphic, although you’re forced to hear them while reading them, on account of the backward 3-shaped e’s, backward n’s, backward r’s and Cyrillic a’s (did I miss anything?). Cross-shaped booklet too, like the Danzig and one other that I currently forget.
(www.spvusa.com)