TYPE O NEGATIVE — Bloody Kisses (review)

TYPE O NEGATIVE — Bloody Kisses album cover

Album · 1993 · Gothic Metal

4/5 · 2014-02-15
siLLy puPPy

TYPE O NEGATIVE also known as “The Drab Four” made a name for themselves on their third album BLOODY KISSES by creating a rock opera type sounding album that has become very influential in both the goth and doom world. The songs are pretty much goth pop with a few interesting sound effects thrown in here and there. It is goth in the sense that it is about loneliness, depression, anger and the usual negative estranged feelings associated with the subculture. The flow of the album is strong as one song leads into the other seamlessly.

The beauty of this album is that it isn't one of those gothier-than-thou snobathons but instead it is a parody of gothic subculture stereotypes. The album had a minor hit with the track “Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All) of which the video was a hit on MTV's Beavis and Butt-Head. The popularity of this album in the goth-tinged 90s made this the very first platinum record for Roadrunner Records. There are a few surprises on here as well such as the Seals and Crofts song “Summer Breeze” which came out even before Marilyn Manson covered the Eurythmics' “Sweet Dreams.”

Overall I find this to have more of a garage rock sound like The White Stripes or even a grunge or punk sound at times. When I think of other true goth metal bands like Cradle Of Filth, for example, this doesn't come close to the intensity usually associated with true metal bands. I wonder why this is categorized as metal at all as it seems to be only a minor element to the whole sound with more focus on Peter Steele's Dracula-like vocal style making it an eccentric blend of gothic rock, however, there is just enough doom metal to keep me from protesting its inclusion into the genre, although never anything outlandish and energetic. This album could be just a tad shorter for me but fairly uniform in quality throughout.

more than 2 years ago
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UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

It´s a quite humourous album. I can recommend it.

siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Thanks for the clarification, guys. In my review i said it is their third album not making a distinction between whether it is live or what have ya. I guess i just said third album because it is third on the list on RYM. I haven't yet heard "Feces" so have nothing to say about it. Seems though that it's one of those grey-area albums like many Zappa albums that have elements of studio, live and re-recordings all wrapped into one.

Warthur wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Even if you count Feces as a studio album, when you look past the substitute song titles actually five of the 7 tracks on it (or 8 if you have the version with a cover version of Paranoid) are rerecordings of songs from the debut, so arguably it's the same studio album all over again anyway. ;)

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I´d Count this as their second studio album. I know "Feces" was more or less recorded live in the studio, but it´s still generally regarded as a live album.