It's that time of year again. The veil is thinning, the nights are growing longer and darker and the smell of burning leaves rides high in the wind. Dollar store ghosts teeter from tree branches and bellow in the breeze. Plastic pumpkin shaped blow molds illuminate windows in glowing orange hues. Streetlights bathe sidewalk corners in ominous, golden cones of light, offering little sanctuary from the shadows that surround them. Even the smallest suburban thicket of trees exudes the deepest sense of Sylvan dread.
The month of October always awakens a certain flurry of emotions inside me—feelings of childish excitement, a healthy dose of general trepidation, a wistful melancholy and a stern obedience to ceremony. I'm flooded with the memories of sharp edged vacuformed plastic masks and serrating, saliva filled plastic befanged dentures. I remember the smell of latex masks that were doused with a veneer of talcum powder that burned my eyes while the nose would fill with a condensation that dripped cold and constant down my mouth and chin. Horror movies, trick-or-treating, jack-o-lanterns, scary stories, vintage die cut paper wall hangs, overpriced faux-goth home decor materialism, candy corn—I'm enthralled by it all.
Like the TGIF lineup from my childhood, I like to try and do a special Halloween themed episode of the blog when I have the opportunity. Therefore, I have been whittling my way down to a submission from 783punx/783label that I think aligned pretty well, although tragically late. My apologies to the label. The UK record label released a compilation album, two years in the making, entitled, Blast No. 1: Blastbeat Tribute to Type O Negative, back in 2023. I think the title should be self explanatory enough, but this is a collection of bands doing Type O Negative covers in the style of grindcore. And just so we are clear, we are using the term "grindcore" somewhat loosely here. Some of these bands I would label as just black metal or death metal, for sure.
For those who are not aware of Type O Negative, they are a far cry from grindcore, especially when it comes to the tempo; making this cover album an interesting study in the genre. Additionally, Type O Negative's solemn, goth vibes and loose Halloween associations seem like the best a grindcore blog can pull for this holiday.
In my youth, compilation albums were some of my favorite CD purchases. You got a lot of tracks for usually fairly cheap and it was a great way to get introduced to new bands that you might not have heard otherwise. Tribute albums on the other hand were notoriously less reliable. The above list of attributes was still applicable, but hearing rehashed interpretations of your favorite songs from one of your favorite bands might seem like a great idea on paper, but it's an equation that seldomly works out. In 2013 I bought the CD release of Undead: A Tribute to Disrupt and despite the absolutely stacked lineup of bands and legendary tracklisting, the release was underwhelming. I know over the last few years labels like The Hills Are Dead Records have been pushing out grindcore tribute compilations of bands such as The Ramones, The Dead Kennedys, The Misfits and Extreme Noise Terror, to name a few. There seems to be some sort of unofficial challenge of "will it blast?"
The Misfits—in addition to probably being my favorite non-grindcore band since the sixth grade—have the most tribute albums I have ever come across. Through those releases I learned a lot about cover songs. Bands will typically go one of three routes: either they will hopefully deconstruct the song and make it their own, or they will play it beat for beat to the original, or they will opt for some kind of a parody rendition of the song. Ideally the first option is preferable. As far as a grindcore cover, I think Wormrot's cover of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's, "Rich" is the best possible outcome. All that being said, I've never reviewed a compilation of various artists before.
A brief history of Type O Negative:
Type O Negative is a band that has its roots in the 80's hardcore scene of New York. Founding members of the band wanted to try for a sound that was a bit of a departure and through a series of evolutions and name changes, coalesced into the Type O Negative we know today. The band was hugely instrumental in popularizing gothic metal with the mainstream and their slow, doom rock ballads are instantly recognizable. Their third album, Bloody Kisses, was Roadrunner Records' first album to go gold, and now has since gone platinum.
The band was known for their controversial, mean spirited or darkly romantic lyrics as well as embodying a tongue-in-cheek and almost desperately self-deprecating humor. Much of this is in large thanks to frontman, Peter Steele. The vampiric vocalist's sonorous and sultry singing style coupled with his six foot, seven inch, brick shithouse frame was the stuff of legend. Steele's reluctance to be in the spotlight and live the "rockstar" lifestyle led to years of depression and drug use that manifested in the band's later songs. Peter Steele tragically died in 2010 which ended Type O Negative's twenty-one year tenure. The band's influence can be heard in goth, industrial and metal genres over the last three decades.
Now when I think of Type O Negative, I think of the faceless hesher kid in the halls of my junior high school who wore the band's t-shirt and it's seared into my memory as the most 90's thing ever. I think of my time served in a recent horror-punk band in which half the band was obsessed with Type O Negative and I had to fake a smile and feign interest when they would play Type O Negative songs in the rehearsal room. The appeal was entirely lost on me. I think of my deeply toxic relationship with my ex-girlfriend immediately after high school. October Rust was the soundtrack to her torrid, white trash, scummy spooky girl exploits. Like, she thought the song "Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-all)" was about her. Yet, it would turn out that "Unsuccessfully Coping With The Natural Beauty Of Infidelity" was closer to the truth.
So obviously I am not the biggest Type O Negative fan. I've never liked Peter Steele's ASMR, seductive spoken word monologues over droning doom tracks. Not to mention, the distortion tone on the bass and guitar makes my skin crawl.
Well, I don't exactly know where or how to start, so I suppose I will start with my initial observations. Type O Negative songs are lengthy. Some are up to ten or fifteen minutes long. That's an entire EP where I come from. Henceforth, a lot of these songs on Blast No. 1: Blastbeat Tribute To Type O Negative are over the three minute mark, even when sped up. A couple are even seven or eight minutes. Type O Negative's dragging tempo and inability to end a song are contributing factors to their albums' lengths. The juxtaposition of tempos between Type O Negative's haunting sensual sludge and our version of grindcore could lead to a nice powerviolence-style or sludge-grind interplay of fast and slow, and in some cases, that's exactly what happened.
As far as what routes the bands took in orchestrating their covers, all avenues were utilized in my opinion. Some bands made the songs their own and I think these were the most successful when accomplishing the principals of the assignment. These bands I felt kept the grindcore in focus. Blast No. 1: Blastbeat Tribute To Type O Negative opens strongly with a few of these bands—Kannibal Kris's version of "Are You Afraid" and Task Force Beer's "Prelude To Agony." The latter of which uses that nice balance of sludge and grindcore. Thankfully, most bands on this record find some kind of balance like this.
There are also some bands that took the path of playing the songs relatively straight. Will Cope's "Some Stupid Tomorrow" plays it half level, half blasting grindcore. They straddle both sides expertly in a way I didn't think I would enjoy as much as I did. Speaking of which, Plague Bearer's interpretation of "Creepy Green Light" is perhaps the most "as is" song on the record. It has a grind-metal luster on it, but it manages to keep the mid-tempo pace, stay heavy and still encapsulate the eerie gothic mood of the original. It shines a green gelled spotlight on the talent and musicianship of both Plague Bearer and Type O Negative.
Lastly, there are the parodies. Much like how a lot of The Misfits covers—not to mention the entire horror-punk genre—feature a Glenn Danzig vocal caricature, I surely expected a Peter Steele imitation and there were a few. The best impersonation was from Assur on their version of "Christian Woman." I thought this would be kind of cheesy and infuriating, but Assur followed it up with some of the best blasting on the album. There are a few other bands with vocal mimicries, but Emissaries Of Syn turn their style of parody into a whole Weird Al mannered rewrite. Their cover of Type O Negative's most famous song, "Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-all)," ditches the original lyrics for new lyrics. About what, Guinness? I rarely feel comfortable in calling out a band on its faults, but this just seems like the biggest missed opportunity given the popularity of the song and the title of the album. Altogether, it is a weak performance.
Overall, as unlikely of a concept as a grindcore tribute to Type O Negative might seem, this album plays fairly well. Some of the bands you will recognize and some of them you won't. Some of the songs work and some don't. Not all the tracks are winners, but this could be due to the manners of the songs and maybe not so much to the bands, although some of it is definitely the bands. The artists that knew how to wrangle-in the gloomy melody and blast through the monotony definitely are the ones who came out on top. Some songs play more like black metal, while others do their job as moody death-grind cantatas. I think 783punx did a great job on the album as a whole. The production and mastering is consistent and well mixed. Tracks don't waver in quality like a lot of compilations. The packaging obviously had some money behind it as the album had a big roll out with deluxe gatefold screened vinyl, cassette tapes, CD's, t-shirts, stickers, box sets, et cetera. It's clear a lot of time and love went into this.
I would say that this release is, in truth, dedicated to the niche of the niche. The grindcore and Type O Negative fans that exist in the tiniest of slivers of the Venn diagram. For grindcore fans and metalheads with varied palettes, this might be just the release that is missing from your collection, as it most definitely fills a certain hollow in the spectrum of all things grind. As for goth kids with a propensity for the extreme, Blast No. 1: Blastbeat Tribute To Type O Negative could be your gateway into grindcore and other associated extreme genres.
Well, that's about it. That's all I have. I hope it wasn't too disappointing. I will see you in the next blog. Until then, take it easy.
FFO: Type O Negative, Plague Bearer, Herida Profunda
Listen to the album: https://783label.bandcamp.com/album/v-a-blast-no-1-blastbeat-tribute-to-type-o-negative
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