Type O Negative
Life Is Killing Me

"If God were suddenly condemned to live the life he has inflicted on men, he would want to kill himself!".

This quote from Dumas introduces the latest work by Type O Negative, a band devoted to a sound that mixes Beatles, Black Sabbath, and a bit of decadent Gothic led by the moody Pete Steele. This album was released in 2003 after years of waiting and was supposed to strengthen the band's image after a troubled album like "World Coming Down" from 1999, considered by Steele himself as their worst album; with a bit more effort, the four New Yorkers manage to deliver a not too bad album that includes the usual mix of doom, hippie melodies, and keyboard layers sometimes even cathedral-like, and in this album also a bit progressive, combined with unique lyrics that blend with the album's title "Life is Killing Me"; Steele, who usually takes care of the lyrics, for example, criticizes the hospital system and doctors, "whose only purpose is to keep you alive to fatten their bank account", or he brings out his misogynistic side in pieces like "How Could She?". There is no doubt that Steele writes crazy lyrics, as crazy as man has now become. The New York singer is interested in criticizing a society that is decaying even just because of single individuals, something not trivial that can ruin anyone's life. That's why life is killing us!

Let's look at the tracklist: "thr13teen " is a "doomish" intro that seems to come out from the previous album, but already with the next "I Don't Wanna Be Me", a fast-paced song with a nice little solo, we think of "Bloody Kisses". Interesting is "Less Than Zero (<0)", where the Beatles/Black Sabbath mix perfectly works, with a hippie sitar, a chorus that comes from "October Rust", and heavy Sabbath-like riffs. The same goes for track 4 "Todd's Ship Gods (Above All Things)", while "I Like Goils", which would be girls (phonetic deformation of Brooklyn English) is bold and loaded. Steele's voice, which so far has been aggressive and somber, becomes sweet and seductive in the elegant "...a dish best served coldly" at least in the first part, which gives way to doom and a hint of progressive in the second part, expertly interpreted by the excellent Josh Silver on keyboards.

Other truly noteworthy songs (I'd say all of them) are the eponymous title track that gives the album its name, "Nettie", very "Bloody Kisses", "(We Were) Electrocute", and the gem "Anesthesia". For the rest, the album remains at high levels, but not the highest in my opinion, like their absolute masterpiece "Bloody Kisses" (I didn't want to repeat it again). Past songs like "Black N. 1", "Christian Woman" will remain such at least until the release of a future work that can add new masterpieces to their creations.

In the meantime, we listen to this "Life is Killing Me", which is still an excellent album in its own right.