Type O Negative's "World Coming Down" was released in September 1999, only months after Harris and Klebold shot up their high school, and only a couple of years away from terrorists plowing planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The CD tray depicts a green-filtered view of New York at night, including the Twin Towers. In retrospect casting everything in a haunted and despairing light.

But even without those totem reminders, the material on this CD is wracked with pain, longing, and haunted spaces. The band was burned out from years of touring, from romantic relationships becoming more serious, from the pressure of having to follow up the bestselling October Rust. And, most importantly to the band's slow unraveling on this album, Peter Steele's mother was starting to get sick.

The only moment of true humor on this album is the opening, Skip It, which sounds like you've just bought a defective CD, before Kenny Hickey shouts "Sucker!" and the album proper launches off with White Slavery, a song about cocaine addiction. Peter tries for humor with the bridge of "Let me say Pepsi Generation a few lines of misinformation. Watch your money flow away oh so quick. To kill yourself properly Coke is it." But the song is so drowned in its own atmosphere, brought to you by Steele's bass, Hickey's guitar, Josh Silver's keys and John Kelly's drums, that the humor feels strangled. What remains is the pained chorus of "I lost myself again."

Now, Type O Negative is a band in love with sound collages. Ever since Glass Walls of Limbo off the debut, TON tries to include strange little sonic assaults on the senses that can either deepen or detract from the mood of the album. The three soundscapes on this album -- Sinus, Liver and Lung -- resolve themselves into cigarette smoke, wet glasses thunked on a wood table, a phone call, shrieks of pain, the sound of a heart monitor and automatic lung. In short, Peter is at his most naked here, using these collages to talk about his mother, the call that he received giving him the news, and long nights in the hospital. It's heartbreaking.

On a similar note, Type O Negative has included a band cover on every album since their faked "live" release, with "Hey Joe" (reworked as "Hey Pete") and the later addition of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid." Peter Steele has always admitted that his two musical inspirations are Black Sabbath and the Beatles, and so the band charges through a medley of three Beatles covers here. But rather than pick the happiest or most sunshiney of their compositions, the band chooses one that's druggy ("Day Tripper"), one that's sarcastic and hurt ("If I Needed Someone") and one that's possessed ("I Want You (She's So Heavy)"). Even the covers are defeated on this album, with not the slightest taste of McCartney -- or buoyancy.

Peter deals with death explicitly in two songs, Everyone I Love is Dead and Everything Dies. Everyone I Love is Dead is the more poetic of the two, with Peter really dropping his shields and writing poetically of dealing with loss. "Seems three years though maybe four/Someone drops dead whom I adore/You love someone, there will be grief/The kiss of death, lips of a thief/Gddmnit./A dusty stack of photographs/At times I cried but mostly laughed/Commit the past into blue flame/Acrid smoke cowardly shame/Gddmnit." The song charges on, lit up by its own pain, and then Peter reveals a piece of himself he would probably rather keep hidden. "At times I'm truly terrified/'Cause dope and booze don't help to hide/They're used to mask a weakling's hurt/It's just like painting over dirt." There is no wonder as to why Pete has tried to disown this album.

Everything Dies tries to be more comical. Type O Negative's original incarnation, as the caveman-loving Carnivore, is obvious with the testosterone chants opening the song. Then it gets a little more quiet and Peter sings couplets of all who have died. "Well I loved my aunt/But she died/And my Uncle Lou/But he died." And later on "My ma's so sick/She might die/Though my girl's quite fit/She will die." It's a dark humor, but the pained, roaring chorus of "Everything dies" obliterates any attempt at a pat gesture. Pete wishes he could die, and says, all too real, "Oh God I miss you, I really miss you." Then the caveman chants come back at an even greater velocity, sounding like a combination of anger and tears.

Creepy Green Light and All Hallow's Eve both go for Type O Negative's beloved Halloween-themed rock poses, a safe way to hide. Both tracks succeed, acting as a respite from the non-stop real-life traumas catalogued on this CD. In addition, Hicky finally gets a chance to exhibit his pipes alone on All Hallow's Eve, and he nails it (and wails it).

As a side note, I've been reviewing these tracks all out of order. That's because I want to touch upon each theme. Though the band tries to spread everything out, you can't help but thinking of the songs clumped together once you know the album well. I'll include a tracklist at the end, so you'll get a true representation of the way these songs are spaced.

I'm going to talk about two songs in greater detail to finish this off, but before I do, Who Will Save the Sane? bears a passing mention. I have no idea what the song is about, though at one point it starts leaning toward hospital meditations. I like to think of it as free-form poetry that Peter was writing to try and express himself while waiting to speak with a doctor about his mother. Whether this is true or not, the song includes one of the brightest and cleanest Type O Negative melodies in memory.

Pyretta Blaze is Peter's only foray into sex on this album, if you discount the Halloween-themed Creepy Green Light. This is one of Peter's most emotionally honest and confused songs on sex -- in other words, it feels like real sex, not theater. Since Peter is still wrapped up in thoughts of death, he compares a lover to a funeral pyre, and talks of her in both sexual and spiritual terms. It also contains a melody that is positively bouncy compared to the rest of the album. Though still palled with death, the track is a testament to still finding pleasure, still living on. "You are the first will be my last/Will be my final words/Said she (ah) pyretta blaze."

World Coming Down, the title track of this album, bears closer analysis, as it is the most honest and tortured song that Type O Negative has ever put out. Peter is fully exposed here. Again, I have no doubts as to why Peter doesn't like this album anymore.

She thinks I'm iron man that I don't feel pain

This opening line is interesting for two reasons. The first, that this line is obviously wrapped up in Black Sabbath's song Iron Man. The second, that Pete can actually admit he hurts without irony.

I don't understand why joy must be feigned
I'm so fortunate yet filled with self-hate
That the mirror shows me an ingrate

And here, we see Peter's self-hatred and confusion.

I could easily start pointing fingers
Since the blame is mine it always lingers
Like the truth it lies in my reflection
Though this can't go on there's no question

And now, we see Peter's frustration with himself, for not being able to cast this pain off or lay it on someone else. He believes it's all his fault. The classic "bargaining" stage of death.

Now quickly pass the days long is the night
Lying in bed awake bathed in starlight

Before now, Pete only laid in bed to be serviced or to service. Now he is unable to rest, sweating and worrying.

Better to live as king of beasts
Than as a lamb scared and weak

And here he's trying to comfort himself with his shields, and yet spits out the words with a sort of mockery and self-hatred.

I will deny my role as a human
Holding myself hostage with no demands

Now he tries to go back to his old ways of hedonism, again fueled with anger and hurt.

It's better to burn (to burn) quickly and bright
Than slowly and dull (and dull) without a light

And now the verses end, this time quoting another one of Pete's inspirations, Neil Young. Neatly bookending the personal with more popular culture.

And yet Hickey wails the song to a close:

Well I know
That my world is coming down
Now I know
I know
I'm the one who brought it down
Brought it down
Bring it on down


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Type O Negative. World Coming Down. Released September 21, 1999. The state of music was horrible, aside from a few bright spots. I was living in the house of my ex-girlfriend, battling a crippling depression, looking for a job having just recently moved to California. I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and this album along with NIN's The Fragile helped me through it when I thought the world really was coming down. 1. Skip It. 2. White Slavery. 3. Sinus. 4. Everyone I Love is Dead. 5. Who Will Save the Sane? 6. Liver. 7. World Coming Down. 8. Creepy Green Light. 9. Everything Dies. 10. Lung. 11. Pyretta Blaze. 12. All Hallow's Eve. 13. Day Tripper (medley). Roadrunner Records.

Recommended: Yes