Diving deep into the subgenre of gothic rock, Type O Negative’s final album, “Dead Again”, is a haunting exploration of addiction, love, and personal struggles, wrapped in heavy riffs and Peter Steele’s unmistakable vocals.
The album ‘Dead Again’ came out in 2007 and was the last album Type O Negative produced. The themes shown in the album consist of struggling with substance addiction, becoming a better person, obsessing over a lover, and anger felt during dark times. This album has 10 songs which makes it one hour and seventeen minutes long.
The first song on the album is the title of the album ‘Dead Again’. The first theme shown is to not follow Steele’s footsteps in substance abuse. Steele is the vocalist in Type O Negative. To me, this song is the perfect introduction to the album because it sets up why this album was written, just like a coping mechanism to deal with his past. In the introduction song, Steele has a stern tone, almost like he is sternly schooling himself. The fast tempo can indicate a stressful situation and the aggression felt.
My favorite song from this album is ‘She Burned Me Down’. I personally like this song because of the instrumentals: guitar riffs, keyboard use, and how the drums go with the lyrics being said. The meaning of the song is about Steele’s sister sending him to rehab. It is not my favorite because I relate to the actual meaning in any way, but because of how Steele’s voice sounds in the song. The pitch of his voice changes while singing the main chorus from high to low, specifically when his voice goes low when saying “down to the ground” while really emphasizing what he is saying to the listener. This song is about eight minutes long, and typically I would not take the time to sit down and listen to a song this long, but this specific one is worth every minute.
My least favorite song from this ‘Dead Again’ is ‘The Profit of Doom’. The meaning is about an asteroid that might hit Earth in 2029 named ‘99942 Apophis’. I do not like this song because the tone of Steele’s voice sounds like if someone faked having a deep voice, it just sounds unnatural. The instrumentals are still on point the whole time though.
Overall, I give ‘Dead Again’ an eight out of 10 for how the meaning of each song is so specific and runs with multiple themes that are dark and ‘gothic’ in a sense. The instrumental throughout each song is something that I can not give honest criticism about.
