Type O Negative - Slow, Deep and Hard

My first introduction to Goth was Type O Negative. To this day they are pretty much the only Goth band I really listen to. However, Slow, Deep and Hard, is not in any way Goth to me. I'm sure that people are reading this and saying I have no clue what I'm talking about, but to me this album is Epic Hardcore Brooklyn Metal.

Let me start by saying that Type O is more Emo than all Emo bands rolled up into one. One could argue that by reducing the attention spans of fans of this album Emo was created. The angst is there. The self loathing is dripping out of every lyric. The fuzzy yet over analyzed instrumentation is also there.

Why isn't this album Emo then, or even Proto-Emo? It's very simple. The four guys that recorded this album would eat Emos alive, and build toilets from their skeletal remains. Peter Steele is 6 and a half feet of pure anger and hate on this album, and the guys backing him are just as crazy looking. This is a band of Gothic Barbarians, that also write the songs which are way too long to be Emo. The album makes Emo look like Elmo.

Let me start with the easiest track on the album to discuss. The Misinterpretation of Silence and its Disasterous Consequences, is 1:04 of silence. Clearly a joke, and put in just to kill time. Why the hell not. It's the second from last track on the album.

Now before I go any further it should be mentioned that in the early days especially, Type O Negative multi labled sections to their songs. The lead song on the Album, Unsuccessfully Coping With The Natural Beauty of Infidelity, has three parts that span 12:39 (longest track) that make up the entire mini opus and sound scape.

There is nothing like almost thirteen minutes of a man yelling about his cheating whore of a girlfriend. I find that this song does not play over well with the women either. I think it has something to do with the yelling of bitch, whore, slut and cunt. But aside from the vulgarity it's an amazing song with it's passion and arrangement.

When you release a song Der Untermensch (The Subhuman), and it's 8:54 of essentially ranting about people abusing the system being social parasites, many are going to start screaming racists at the band saying it. Forget the fact that while pouring over the lyrics I can find one actual racial reference, but I heard them called racists for it.

Xero Tolerance is another angry ditty clocking at 7:45, but it isn't until the 4:06 marker that I really get into the song. There's a surfer kind of feel, that really rocks in an upbeat manner, while listening to Peter Steele sing about how he's tanked on rage, drugs and vodka, and the pick ax he's putting through his cheating woman and the man she's going at it with. Which just turns into a wall of blinding hate, then finishes with something that's an eerie mellow.

It starts really slow, and in a kind of a way that at this point is sounding over used, but then it rapidly kicks into a Black Sabbath meats Gregorian chanters of a song called Prelude to Agony. This song uses a lot, and I mean a lot, of long drawn out chords that really help give a heavy weight and feel to the song, but it's been done on every song at this point. I love the arrangements, but unless you really want to feel what it's like to slowly sink into a fit of depression I would skip this song. The upbeat parts just don't make up for it, unless you don't mind a song that robs you of happiness and then pumps you full of vengence. That's long before the jackhammer rage kicks in. After that, it just gets really out there in the murdersphere. I mean all kinds of weird serial killer crazy.

It's clear at this point that Pete had a very bad break-up.

The shortest track, that contains more than just silence, is Glass Walls of Limbo (Dance Mix). I have no clue why this 6:41 is called a dance mix. It's Greogarian like chanting with a dropping chain effect that makes this is very much an art piece. Not for the average listener, but then again this album should never enter the hands of your average listener. That would just be silly, or a really mean joke.

The album ends with the most complicated song title I have come across to date. Well it may actually be tied for first, but with another Type O negative song, from another album.

Gravitational Constant: G = 6.67 X 10-8 cm-3 gm-1 sec-2 is 9:14 minutes that begins with a very quiet "1, 2, 3, 4, I don't want to live no more," and moves on to continue serving up anger and hate, as well as trying to deal with the weight it brings. Around 6:23 the song gets into an upbeat swing, and some what of a revelational like experience that glorifies suicidal tendancies and fades out with more chanting.

Once the album is done I find myself feeling drained, pissed off, and if my girlfriend wasn't so cool, in the mood to kill her. I can't stress enough how angry this album is. In fact it is so angry that I only listen to it, in it's entirety, once every couple of years.

If you don't hate yourself, or your significant other, by the end of this album, you are clearly deader on the inside than I. Or, it could be that you didn't listen to this album one too many times during really dark times of your life. Which is another thing I don't suggest doing with this album. If you already want to kill your woman, hide this album as well.

A side from all the warnings, the only major flaw to this album is some song pointlessly droning on for too long in some parts, which as an artist I respect. As the guy listening to the songs on his Mp3 player while riding his bike, they go on for way too long.

7/10 - content

7/10 - production

9/10 - personal bias