This recording is the property of Type O Negative, Brooklyn, New York. I know this because my review copy of Dead Again tells several times over the course of each track. Of the many ways record companies employ to stop us critics leaking albums onto the internet, this is by far the most irritating, so far. You don’t need to know this but it’s giving me a headache and I need to vent. I’m done now. Thanks.

Anyway, the new Type O Negative album. This is their first since the end of the band’s longstanding relationship with Roadrunner Records and it is perhaps notable that this time around they’ve ditched the radio-friendly comedy goth songs of earlier releases and chosen instead to fully indulge their more epic doom tendencies.

That’s not to say they’ve lost their sense of humour, Pete Steele still finds it hard to take this whole dark and brooding thing entirely seriously (lyrics like “tripping a blind man, why can’t it be you?” pay testament to that) but the jokes are no longer the focus, they’ve taken a back seat in favour of the music.

The overall feel of the album is epic and doomy but that’s not all on offer here. On songs like Halloween In Heaven (“Halloween in Heaven, Christmas in Hell!”) are more punk than metal and September Sun is strongly Beatles influenced (though it’s a version of The Beatles where Paul and Ringo swallowed a load of downers and tried to keep up) and An Ode To Locksmiths is (almost) upbeat blues rock.

Seven albums in and all pushing 40, Type O Negative have realised that they don’t really need to please anyone but themselves and, in doing so, they’ve made an album that their longest-serving fans have been hankering after for years and one that sees the band develop in synch with their younger fans.

Label: SPV
Website: www.typeonegative.net
Release date: 19th March 2007

Tracklist:

1. Dead Again
2. Tripping A Blind Man
3. The Profits Of Doom
4. September Sun
5. Halloween In Heaven
6. These Three Things
7. She Burned Me Down
8. Some Stupid Tomorrow
9. An Ode To Locksmiths
10. Hail And Farewell To Britain