Review by Rexorcist for Type O Negative - October Rust (1996)

Type O Negative are masters of eerily glowing atmospheres, being the perfect example of what a goth metal band should sound like.  They've done a lot during their short time as far as musical innovation goes, and they've even gone almost as far as The Beatles have by going into genre after genre and applying it to their personality.  And one of their most personal albums is their most famous: October Rust.

What we see in October Rust is the decision to go mainstream, and succeed.  This has very little to do with the concept as selling out, although the general sound of the album is less heavy.  Many of these songs fall under rock instead of metal, or maybe a hybrid of the two.  The production technique used throughout the album maintains a heavily-polished pop sound, which brings out all of the romantic strengths.  And Type O Negative once again play through a plethora of different styles, including their doom metal sound from the early days.  But many of the other influences are more fit for rock, like the shoegaze aspects and the darkwave reverb.  Because of this production type, many of the songs, while diverse, occasionally absorb into each other.  Safer to say, they are more similar sounding to each other than the songs off of Bloody Kisses.  There's even a little of this in World Coming Down.

October Rust is a very beautiful album, but it's not my favorite of the group.  This is still an excellent example of goth metal focusing on the art of the sound itself rather than writing the same song over and over again (looking at you, post-Dreadful Hours MDB).  The ideas on this album are built for a wider audience, and I think they did a good job of spreading word of the gothic sound to the masses.