Reviews list for Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me (2003)

After the doomy intro “Thi13teen,” I was met with the first Type O Negative song I’d ever heard that sounded really, truly great. “I Don’t Wanna Be Me,” as simple as it is, is carried by a guitar lead that is, in essence, the perfect upbeat Gothic Metal riff. Drumming is bouncy, chorus is catchy, it’s full of melancholic energy, almost emo honestly.

Now, I also realized immediately that I’d heard this somewhere before, in fact I was quite certain Anathema did this song, and I was quite certain it was on Alternative 4… That’s right, it was track 3, “Empty.”

No, the songs are not identical, but it’s a very, very clear influence.

However, that’s not a bad thing. Type O Negative were one of the first Gothic Metal bands around, and one of the most influential. But “Life is Killing Me” is the first album that really sees them going from influencer to influenced, taking inspiration from the plethora of Gothic Metal that had arisen since their inception.

Since I think a good 95% of Gothic Metal bands that came after are way better than Type O Negative who influenced them, that’s a big plus for me.

Unfortunately though, “I Don’t Wanna Be Me” is far and away better than almost all the following material. Most of the other tracks fall victim to Peter Steele’s atrocious lyricism and goofy antics. There’s some nicely dense compositions going on here, and the band has all the right ingredients to make fantastic songs. Unfortunately, the band members work against one another. Peter Steele is constantly sabotaging any good songs with his embarrassing shenanigans. The keys/synths occasionally add in sounds that sound way too playful or just contrast the otherwise dark atmosphere. The guitar leads are great sometimes… but pretty much everytime the drums switch to doomy plodding, which is when a GOOD RIFF is most necessary, the guitars decide to be as boring as possible.

Thankfully, “Anesthesia” towards the end of the album showcases the band putting all their potential songwriting prowess to good use a delivering a genuinely melancholic masterpiece of gloomy, doomy, Gothic Metal. The density of this track is fantastic, and all the layers contribute to a hazy, moody atmosphere. Even Peter’s lyrics and delivery on this song are good! 

“The Dream is Dead” is a good closer as well, resulting in this album being a plethora of eclectic, dense, but ultimately mediocre Gothic Metal bookended by genuine quality and highlights among the genre.

Of course, if you like frat boy humor and less conventional songwriting in your Gothic Metal, I suppose you will probably just enjoy all of it. But I don’t.

Still, it is easily my favorite Type O release so far.

I absolutely love and miss Pete every day. He is a huge influence on the musician and song writer I am today. Type O Negative was an incredibly important, influential, and innovative band. Pete was always a huge fan of the Beatles, sometimes referring to Type O as the "drab four" in mirror of the "fab four" moniker the Beatles wore. More than any other Type O offering, the Beatles influence is felt here, it's slightly more conventional and slightly more optimistic than the rest of their catalogue-SLIGHTLY being the operative word here. It's still every bit a Type O Negative album, and Type O Negative albums are damn good.

Type O Negative set themselves up as the leading example of what gothic metal should sound like early on in their career.  Many gothic bands have tried to emulate them or use them as a basis for what to sound like, but this doesn't mean Type O Negative always had success.  At one point, the went more mainstream, and some Type O Negative fans have been unfair to this album, ignoring it.  I'm not that type, however, as I embrace branching out.  Life Is Killing Me is considered the album that stopped the golden era of this band, but "golden" and "good" are still two different things.

Right from the start, the album makes a point of noisy production, doomy moments and punk undertones, so we already know what we're getting. Life Is Killing Me lyrically tackles many of the negative thoughts of Steele's mind at the time, dealing with mental instability and a midlife crisis, but the strengthened focus on alternative and pop structures gives this album a much more cheerful disposition.  We get a switch between gothic metal, alternative metal and rock, and gothic doom taking up most of the album, with occasional deathrock bursts with I Like Goils and Angry Itch serving as excellent examples.  Type O Negative never got over punk.

Despite the switch between these three major focal points, we still get some minimal but effective moments of creativity, such as that weird, surreal and repetitive riff in the backdrop of Gimme That.  That's easily one of my favorite aspects of the album.  However, because of the poppier structures, there's less of a romantic and atmospheric approach.  And it's not like we get very many amazing metal solos.

Type O Negative made it perfectly clear with this album that they still had the ability to deliver some fantastic melodies with their production style, but in the effort to go mainstream they forgot to be as atmospheric in their style as in the production.  But that's the only strength of TON that's absent from this album.  Otherwise, this is a perfectly fine Type O Negative album that will give a fan what's asked for.