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“Do you believe in forever? I don’t even believe in tomorrow…”
Try to imagine a man almost two meters tall, with a bodybuilder's physique, a killer's expression, pervaded by dark (in every sense) psychological problems, suicidal tendencies, and sexual perversions.
Place this individual at the microphone and surround him with a few worthy companions, who, while he screams like someone possessed, ravage with music based on Heavy Metal and drawing numerous cues from Industrial and the darkest Gothic.
Now you have a vague idea of what the Type O Negative were able to do in 1991 with their first work: "Slow, Deep And Hard.” It is a daunting task to find, in the hard musical landscape, another album containing so much anger, misanthropy, nihilism, savagery, and indistinct sex.
The singer Peter Steele manages to masterfully interpret all this alienation, which is nothing more than a plunge into the putrid psychological world of a madman, who observes, from his sick eyes, all the filth that surrounds him, and he feels it, lives it, screams it.
The album is divided into seven very long pieces, characterized by a meticulous attention to suggestion and instrumental interludes that even use the organ, to give a certain sense of sacredness to what is merely blasphemous.
The initial intro doesn’t deceive with the epic fury of “Unsuccessfully Copying With The Natural Beauty Of Infidelity” which launches into Metal steeped with violence surmounted by the cavernous and bloody voice of the singer, then gives way to a slow, clear yet still dark melody where the sighs of orgasm are clearly heard; then it resumes with the initial destructive charge and closes with an unusual elegance devoted to electronics.
The second track, “Der Untermensch,” is an absurd combo of thrash, beats, roars, and heavy distortions. This leads to the third stage of moral degeneration with “Xero Tolerance” which, beyond its explicit racist content, is another immersion in a bath of hardcore and blood, where Steele prophesizes murder and death, helped by an organ interlude that intones a sort of funeral.
It also seems that the group leader doesn’t have a particular sympathy for the fairer sex; in fact, “Prelude To Agony,” an invective against sentimental love, is expressed in a realistic and hallucinatory rape with the sound of a pneumatic drill, complete with the victim’s tormented screams and religious choirs (more aimed at the Church of Satan than the Church of God) that make sexual violence a sacrament.
Lastly, there remain the gloomy infernal desolation of “Glass Walls Of A Limbo” and “Gravitational Constant,” a final appeal against life and human existence.
“Slow, Deep And Hard,” after all these years, still retains the cocktail of absolute depravations it carries, making it a unique work in its genre. Not even the same band in their subsequent works could reproduce the same extreme perdition here so clear.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Unsuccessfully Coping With the Natural Beauty of Infidelity (12:39)
A) anorganic transmutogenesis (synthetic division)
Trust and you'll be trusted
Says the liar to the fool
Lust and so what if you're busted?
In love and war there ain't no rules
Do you believe in forever?
I don't even believe in tomorrow
The only things that last forever
Are memories and sorrow
Out of sight out of mind
The motto of betrayal
The prophets preach to forgive and forget
I'm sorry, but I am unable
B) coitus interruptus
C) I Know You're Fucking Someone Else
You went to L'amour Saturday night
Red nails and lipstick dressed two sizes two tight
His tongue down your throat
His hand up your skirt
Yeah I'm a man
But it still hurts
Slut
Whore
Cunt
I know you're fucking someone else
(He knows you're fucking someone else)
I know you're fucking someone else
(He knows you're fucking someone else)
You had cock on your mind
And cum on your breath
Inserted that diaphragm before you left
Practicing freelance gynecology
Where there's a womb there's a way
With you it's for free
Slut
Whore
Cunt
I know you're fucking someone else
(He knows you're fucking someone else)
I know you're fucking someone else
(He knows you're fucking someone else)
Done it before
Time after time
Refused to learn your lesson
Gave 'til it hurt
Thought it was right
Only fools make mistakes twice
So you sit home
Drinking alone
Empty bottle in your hand
Don't even try
To sort out the lies
It's worse to try to understand
You
You make me hate myself
I know you're fucking someone else
(He knows you're fucking someone else)
I know you're fucking someone else
(He knows you're fucking someone else)
I know you're fucking someone else
(He knows you're fucking someone else)
I know you're fucking someone else
(He knows you're fucking someone else)
I know
(He knows)
I said I know
(He said he knows)
I know
(He knows)
04 Prelude to Agony (12:15)
There is no pain like that of desire
Is there no difference between women and fire?
One burns the spirit
The other the flesh
Is sex worth the price of certain death?
Absolution
I am whole
Absolution
I am
Open her loins and into the hearth
Don't let her flames consume your heart
For the quest of holy copulation
The end result?
Self immoliation
Absolution
I am whole
Absolution
I am
Love is life
Life is love
Love is pain
Pain is death
Agony and ecstacy
Your cries of pain my pleasure
To know my machine internally
Your torment I treasure
Lifeblood combines with semen
Your screaming my laughter
The compressor is running smoothly
'Tis vengeance I am after
Begging becomes your lovesong
You're dying
I masturbate
For the crime of burning me
I give to thee
Jackhammerape
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
(Pain)
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Other reviews
By stargazer
"Ultimately, 'Slow, Deep and Hard' is an apotheosis of self-destruction and hatred. Weak hearts, beware!"
"Peter seems to have realized that his journey into the depths of human neuroses... 'suicide is self expression.'"
By Stefano90
Physics, sex, suffering, death, suicide, God, and whores.
Rating: 7.5
By Gabrielegilli
In 12 minutes, Steele vents against his girlfriend, guilty of being unfaithful to him... every single damn time, I stand up and applaud in tears.
"I DON'T WANNA LIVE NO MORE" Steele shouts resigned... the greatest metal album of all time, destined to be remembered by me until the end of my days.
