It’s going to be hard to talk about this album without simply saying “It sounds like TYPE O NEGATIVE from the late 90s, and if you like that era of the band, then you’ll dig it” or something along those lines. If you’re familiar with what that means, you might also be familiar with the trolly politics of that band from Brooklyn. You may also be thinking that a band with that kind of vibe might become the soundtrack to the manosphere if they were around today. They sold a shirt that said “Our pledge to women: provide, protect, procreate,” for fuck’s sake! I passed on buying that one when I saw them at The Vic in 1997 and picked up the design with “The Green Men” on the front and “This Blood’s For You” on the back instead. Even at 14, I had ambivalent feelings about drinking alcohol, so the Budweiser reference gave me pause. Still, I figured it was better than buying a shirt with a word I didn’t understand. Basically it’s a good thing social media was barely extant when vocalist and bassist Peter Ratajczyk died just over 15 years ago.
But, what does it mean to say that a band is “just like” another, especially one as unique as TYPE O NEGATIVE? The qualities that made them distinct were their metallic and gothic sound, their self-deprecating humor, their visual presentation, and their aggressive cishet masculine chauvinism. It’s that last one that’s the most troubling and the one they leaned into quite deeply. Does a band, a project, trying to emulate the world of TYPE O NEGATIVE need also lean into the male supremacy and belligerent xenophobia of their muses? It seems like Nate Garrett, the man behind the name NEON NIGHTMARE, has considered some of these same questions or issues when creating his homage to Peter Steele’s longest lasting project and has replied with a firm no.
Even when limiting discussion to the sound of TYPE O NEGATIVE, their uniqueness is apparent. Bands such as The BEATLES, BLACK SABBATH, and The CURE were influences on Peter Steele’s songwriting, if not the sound of the band. They’ve also put their own take on songs by HENDRIX, SABBATH, SEALS & CROFTS, The BEATLES, The STATUS QUO (feat. OZZY on vocals), NEIL YOUNG, and The DOORS, among others. They were playing in a world that had heard bands more modern than these, but the sense is that these are bands that were influential in their childhoods. Aside from HENDRIX, SABBATH, and DEEP PURPLE, none are bands that typically come to mind when considering cover song choices for a heavy metal band. It’s this element that made them stand alone because they were unafraid to be influenced by sounds outside their chosen genre. They were not imitating a single sound and until now, had no imitators because of that very novelty.
Well, NEON NIGHTMARE doesn’t sound exactly like The Drab Four, but that would be boring as hell. The pedant in me will point out that the vocals don’t reach the depths of Peter Steele’s baritone in the lower parts and the standard voice that appears is more akin to Kenny Hickey’s plain old shout. It’s fine. The bass tone also doesn’t exactly match some of the most blown-out scuzziness as you might be familiar with on tracks such as “Be My Druidess.” Again, this sonic gap is fine. It sounds like maybe what a new TYPE O NEGATIVE record would sound like with modern production techniques or instrumentation. The album even has the tongue-in-cheek intro (à la “Machine Screw,” “Bad Ground,” or “Skip It”). “Higher Calling” is a mashup of phone vibrations and overlapping voices that quickly become white noise—not the spiritual reference that comes to mind when those two words are set together.
Another aspect of the TYPE O NEGATIVE sound that I suggested as important is the sense of humor, which extends beyond the clever intro track. The line on “It’s All Over (For You)” that clicked for me here is “rearranging chairs on the Titanic / everything’s OK, nobody panic.” It’s delivered just how it should be and doesn’t get beaten into the ground through repetition. Even better, “LATW2TG” stands for “Laughing All the Way to the Grave,” and you’ll be singing along with that as soon as the chorus comes up. This song is also notable because it starts with a series of power chords and some guitar groans, whereas the first two tracks started so similarly with their melodic keyboard intros that you might think they were two parts of the same tune. “LATW2TG” also stands as proof that NEON NIGHTMARE can pull off faster tempos that draw on the bluesier influences that inspired this sound. As a result, this might be my favorite song on the album, though “Promethean Gift” rounds things out with a similar sampling of the many parts and passages that you want to hear here.
A scan of the lyrics shows there is none of the misogyny, homophobia, racism, or tastelessness that can be easily found in Peter Steele’s lyrics. As much as I thought it was edgy or cool or funny or subversive to enjoy these words when listening to TYPE O NEGATIVE when I was younger, I have a harder time stomaching them now. My past uncritical embrace of them is a habit I will need to break. So, it’s really fucking cool that someone has finally put this sound out there again without the baggage of Brooklyn’s pale, doomy, sarcastic brothers of the night.
In reality, it doesn’t seem as though Peter Steele and company would have become darlings of people like Andrew Tate and his brother if they were still active. I mean, Peter Steele worked a manual labor job for the New York City parks department. He listened to LAIBACH and watched Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Public service and comfort with underground culture are quite different from the hypermasculine crap pumping out of the manosphere. It’s hard to imagine that Andrew Tate would conceive of the ideas implied in “Wolf Moon (Including Zoanthropic Paranoia).” All that said, Peter Steele did convert to Catholicism in his late 30s and seemed to second guess some of his earlier beliefs. He’s not the same as the grifter class of adult Catholic converts (cf. JD Vance), but it still is a curious change of heart for a follower of his work to process. Does that make it OK to listen to his older songs with a clear conscience? Not in the least, but that’s why it’s even better that we have NEON NIGHTMARE’s formidable presence stepping out of the shadows after so long.
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