Chris DeLine

Peter Steele, lead singer and bassist for Brooklyn, NY based group Type O Negative recently gave a humorous description as to the reasoning behind the band’s cover art for the upcoming album Dead Again during an interview with Tina Cederberg of GetMetal.com, “Me being the songwriter and art coordinator for the band I thought the visual would go with the title Dead Again. And being Slavic and having quite a bit in common with Rasputin – he was an alcoholic, a drug addict, a womanizer, he had a big penis.” Talk about calling ‘em like you see ‘em.

The group’s upcoming release is a drifting departure from 2003’s Life is Killing Me which was far more commercially viable in terms of the sound of the majority of the tracks on the album. Dead Again is deeper and delivers something of a throwback for the band in terms of the song count and length, with the ten song record timing in at just under eighty minutes. As per the norm the basis for much of the lyrical material comes from a variety of personal sources, from that of Steele’s shame towards his drug and alcohol abuse in “Dead Again” to that of Dimebag Darrell Abbott’s slaying in “Halloween in Heaven.” As always the album should be terrific and nothing less than a wine-soaked doomfest can be expected from the band on its upcoming tour which will also feature Celtic Frost and Brand New Sin. It has also been reported recently that the band will be included in this year’s Gods of Metal festival in Milan, Italy; the schedule also including the likes of Velvet Revolver, Dream Theater, Dimmu Borgir, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Label Society and Megadeth. Look for the album in stores on March 13.

[This post was first published by Culture Bully.]