Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (1993)^{Release ID: 935}

Goth metal is one of my least explored genres, which I think is extremely hypocritical of me considering that I adore gothic and dark touches in things.  You have Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf to thank for that one.  As such, I've only heard a couple of Type O Negative albums, namely their most famous two: Bloody Kisses and October Rust.  I'm literally working on a couple of vampire novel ideas, and my debut novel was partly about zombies.  Ever since I saw The Nightmare Before Christmas as a kid, I realized how much I like dark and gothic stuff.  The desire for it became stronger and stronger, and the best album I can think of that replicates my current love of darkness is Bloody Kisses.

Bloody Kisses is an album all about the balance of everything that makes music what it is.  For example, the wide variety of the album brings gothic metal and rock into the world of doom, alternative, psych, hardcore punk, shoegaze and industrial in random places, despite the fact that we still have a primarily gothic sound.  The album's shorter songs have a tendency to morph into other genres while never breaking form, whereas the slower songs are all about the atmospheric gothic doom sound that fans of darker and slower music tend to love.  Yes, the songs still morph occasionally and the atmosphere is a gorgeously produced blend of the two genres with Steele's voice poetically chanting Nick Cave style topics with flawless delivery, which brings me to the next form of balance: deep gothic whispers and growls as well as higher pitched singing.  Everything in between is there.  This variety also has a bit of a humorous side, as we get a serious parody of hippie pop rock and a couple hardcore punk intros and outros for certain gloomy gothic doom songs.  And they still remain catchy as well as heavy.

On top of this Beatles-style exploration of the metal and rock worlds, there is a balance of the slower droning that the niche fanbase loves as well as some serious accessibility.  I mean, even the slower songs have SOME catchiness about them, because Type O Negative is one of the best bands you can get when looking for a melodic act.  This never gets in the way of whatever moods the band is trying to go for, and unlike a similarly handled album, say the overly-ambitious self-titled Beatles album, there are NO weak tracks.  In fact, the segues and skits have so much atmospheric power in them that I can't possibly even enjoy the idea of listening to this album without them.  I'm really glad Type O Negative made that choice, considering their back-to-back jokes tracks from their next album, October Rust, did nothing to set up the mood for that album.  On Bloody Kisses, it's different; they're all about setting up sexual and gothic tones.

I enjoyed every atmosphere, every note played and every word sung.  The whole album shows the band mastering the advanced tricks of music in a perfectly balanced way, and its presence glows green with gothic power and lust.  I'm having trouble deciding whether this is my favorite goth album instead of Let Love In.  It's an extremely close call.  On the second listen, October Rust has made it to my top 50 albums of all time, and I can even say I enjoy this album more than Paranoid, an honor I've given to only four other albums at this point.

I’ll have to admit right off the bat, as someone who loves Gothic Metal, Type O Negative are pretty much antithesis to what I like to see in the genre. Full of humor and groove, the album is about as far removed from Doom as Gothic can get, and spits in the face of any melancholy normally associated with Gothic Metal. Most of the time, the band is just having fun, and as a result there is a lack of any genuine emotion to it.

There are at least plenty of moments of decent musical composition. The Title track stands out as quite a good song, their closest to Doom here, and a few other tracks make great use of keys and other sound effects to layer the music. Unfortunately, Peter is always throwing ridiculously stupid lyrics over the music, which ruins a good amount of it for me. His delivery in general is hammy in a bad way, like he’s always trying to parody something.

Impressive musically, disappointing altogether.