Type O Negative includes: Josh Silver, Peter Steele. Kenny Hickey. Additional personnel: Paul Bento (sitar, tambura). Recorded at Systems Two, Brooklyn, New York. Type O Negative has delivered either death-metal's first prog-rock concept album, or its "Good Vibrations"...or maybe both. Either way BLOODY KISSES is one of the most alluringly weird albums in the history of the genre--an hour-long ode to break-ups and suicide that mixes acoustic guitars and synthesizers with metallic power chords, and lush choral harmonies with a lead vocalist who sounds like he died sometime before the recording process began. That last bit is meant as a compliment; if you're going to attempt an eleven-minute suicide dirge like the title track, you better be either Leonard Cohen or dead, and Type O's Peter Steele has a bit of both in him. For most of BLOODY KISSES, though, Steele and crew come alive as pop studio experimentalists in a field dominated by anti-pop, anti-studio shredders. "Christian Woman" is a three-part epic that ebbs and flows with a slow metal groove, pretty background vocals, synthesized strings, and a morose lead voice that spells out a story of sex, death and Jesus. "Too Late: Frozen" places a bright pop chorus over chord changes that echo Bruce Springsteen's "Tunnel Of Love." There's a surf-y organ line buried in "Blood & Fire." The best pop joke of them all, if that's what it is, is a heavily psychedelic cover of Seals & Crofts' "Summer Breeze"; try listening to the song (which is done straight) while reading the lyric sheet (which is not).

• Genre: Pop
• Format: Vinyl
• Released: 5/17/2019