Bloody Kisses

Well it’s my own submission, why wouldn’t I give it a 5/5? Type O Negative was one of those underrated genius bands imo. They had an ear for great music and every song is just dripping with sarcasm, little winks at the camera etc, all while making you wonder if they actually are serious. I think whoever described them as 50% Sabbath, 50% Beatles kinda got it right. You can hear both influences in there really clearly once you know. And the first few songs on this album are just all-time. 5/5.

It's a good thing that they don't care what I think, because I think that they are kind of shitty

Oh yes! I was so tempted to suggest something by Type O Negative myself. When reviewing the Sisters of Mercy for the main list, I suggested that they "were kind of like Type O Negative, without the fun". It is very important to remember that Type O are a band that's all about fun. Yes, goth metal is an unlikely vehicle for it, but these guys, and most everyone I know who like them, are having an absolute blast. Type O are goth camp. The dials are turned up to 11 and and we're having the time of our lives. Also in my Floodland review, I mentioned the impossibly beautiful girls in corsets and lace writhing around me. Type O pastiches this, and I'm totally here for it. While there is clearly a 2020s reinvigoration of goth, thanks in part, let's be fair, to Jenna Ortega, I think we should go further. Pass me the eyeliner, get me in some leather trousers and a frilly shirt and let the impossibly beautiful girls in corsets and lace writhe around me.

Surprisingly melodic metal with flashes of grunge, and do I hear some shoegaze in there as well? A more compelling mixture of genres than much of the metal on the actual list.

I don’t know that I need anymore early 90s metal, thanks

Not only do Type O go for broke in length, they keep it seamless. The project's uniformly campy, but everything else is dynamic goth bliss.

Yeah, this is right up my alley. I think it is a hair bloated, but it makes up for it in the vibe.

Storms outside, swirling guitars inside. Revisiting Bloody Kisses today, I wasn’t sure what I’d feel. This was an album I played to death in my youth — a goth metal classic soaked in atmosphere, sardonic humour, and Peter Steele’s baritone. I half expected it to feel cringe in hindsight. It doesn’t. In fact, it holds up better than I imagined. After the bruising Slow, Deep and Hard, Bloody Kisses was a drastic pivot. The hardcore roots aren’t gone, but they’re pushed to the back as romantic, doom-laden goth takes centre stage. Christian Woman and Black No. 1 kick things off with a theatrical flourish — slow, massive riffs given space to breathe by Josh Silver’s moody, melodic keyboards. The lyrics in both tracks are tongue-in-cheek, playing with tropes of religious guilt and goth vanity. The call-and-response vocals only add to the campy fun. And yet, Bloody Kisses (A Death in the Family) changes everything. Here the irony vanishes for 10 minutes, and you’re left with a stunningly slow, mournful, sincere doom piece. The drums drag like grief itself. The solos ache. The keys wrap the whole thing in a gothic cathedral's worth of atmosphere. It’s the emotional core of the album, and perhaps the best thing Type O ever recorded. That emotional punch only makes the return to playful weirdness more effective. The Seals & Crofts cover Summer Breeze shows again how much 60's influence there is on this album. We Hate Everyone and Kill All the White People are lightning rods of controversy, but also tongue-in-cheek middle fingers to the people who misunderstood (or deliberately misrepresented) Steele’s politics. If Untermensch from the previous album provoked outrage, this album gleefully toys with that fallout. Steele never backed down from confrontation — I still remember Carnivore handing out communist propaganda at gigs — and he used shock just as much as sincerity to make a point (and sell records). Even the strange interludes ("Fay Wray Come Out and Play", "Dark Side of the Womb") add to the sense of chaos. And yet through it all, the album flows, never outstaying its welcome despite the hour-plus runtime. Listening again today, what stands out is how Bloody Kisses walks the tightrope between camp and genuine feeling. It’s dramatic, erotic, heavy, completely ridiculous, sorrowful, romantic, and tons of fun — sometimes all in the same song. That contrast is what makes the album so compelling. Steele knew when to wink, and when to cut deep. For all its theatrics, Bloody Kisses is sincere where it counts. It’s a towering slab of goth metal that still stands tall. And damn, it’s good to have it back in rotation.

It's hard to tell just how "in on it" they are with their own inherent silliness, but it really does put out an unmatched vibe that mostly makes up for the bloat.

One of the cornerstones of gothic metal and the first peak in Type O Negative's discography. Along with Paradise Lost, they gave this genre its shine in the 90s, renewing and making even more oppressive the original gothic rock of the previous decade

Interesting sound. More of this experimentation with different sounds should have been on the original list, instead of so many repeated artists/genres

My brother had this album on CD back when we were young. I couldn't stand it back then, and still can't. I don't care whether or not they are consiously being tongue-in-cheek with their sound and lyrics; it still sounds like a band that is massively constipated.

y 1 Sounds like Metallica if they went goth

Definitely not what I was expecting given the album artwork. This is definitely on the softer side of hard rock, sort of a malleable clay, but that's not a bad thing at all, and it reminds of The Cult's goth adventures, but it also goes off on some esoteric tangents and even predicates the more harmonious nature of nu-metal. Like the best scary rockers, Peter Steele also seems like he was a genuinely nice bloke and it sucks that he died so young.

Oddly enough, I got Romeo Void vibes listening to this thing. I might like it better if we slept together.

Every time I thought I had this album figured out it ended up taking another totally unexpected turn. I was settling in for heavy emo rock at first but it started as a mix of like 5 finger death punch and Depeche Mode THEN got to the heavy Metallica stuff before becoming somewhat more mainstream rock and ending with a fucking sitar. Probs wont listen again for a long time but definitely memorable if only for the Halloween song and the death to all white people song.

in the garden of eden kinda vibe. daddy chill. 11 minute songs and you're not Mars Volta? please.

Kinda peak self-important Goth, so dark, so serious. I don't mind it as music, though.

I've never chosen to listen to them before. Goth/metal/rock band. Very vampiric. Interesting album.

Bruh. 3/10

4/10. It's a good thing these guys say they don't care what I think, because I didn't enjoy this music very much. Like, the summer breeze cover was fun because it was so unexpected and different, but I think Gothic metal just isn't for me.

While hearing Black No. 1 I clearly remember the gothmetalheads going wild on this on the dancefloor in my younger years. Especially the ladies were particularly fond of Peter Steele. As then I can't fathom what the appeal was. Still can't actually. For me it is all over the place and no real point of reference.

Not my cup of tea...

Didn’t enjoy this at all. 2 stars.

Knew about these guys but thought they were heavy metal and definitely missed out on the goth part. There's some interesting instrumentation going on here, and I enjoyed a good deal of the arrangements, but man this thing is long – didn't look at the runtime before it started, and it just felt like it kept going and going without end. As a result, things get a bit tiring by the midpoint (which could've made a decent LP all in itself) and become an absolute slog by the end. The theatrics were fun at first, but really wore me down and made me tired of listening.

Not for me!

Well that was a bloody mess (pun intended). Not quite sure what they’re going for here or if there’s just a big sect of Dracula metal enthusiasts but I may not be the target audience. The summer breeze cover was also an interesting interpretation. Overall this album was like a chopped and screwed version done by white people about their weird hobbies. 2.7/10

I'd give zero stars if I could

This is the musical equivalent of an older person stating “just saying” after insulting everyone in the vicinity. It’s the audio version of an ironic WhatsApp group where people are racist and sexist but it’s “just bants, and besides people can’t say anything these days without some snowflake getting offended”. It’s so far round the irony circle it’s firmly in the stable of the other side who genuinely think this. Utter tosh.

Love this album, very influential in my youth. Good dark times. RIP Peter

5 stars for Peter Steele's gorgeous head of hair and sexy rock god bod! A man who was truly sculpted for no other purpose than to rock. What a legend, what a sex machine.

Probably would have gone for October Rust, but both are 5 star, obviously.

Gothic Metal I wasn't looking forward to listening to this....but when It started - I was pleasantly surprised. I actually enjoyed it and that was a great re-imagining of Summer Breeze. Standouts: Summer Breeze, Christian Woman, Black No. 1, We Hate Everyone, Bloody Kisses 4/5

A classic in gothic metal with terrific songs like Christian Woman and Black No. 1.

Dark and gothic, but with real tunes in there as well. The cover of Summer Breeze felt weird at first, but then I liked it a lot. A clear influence on lots of bands I love, but I (slightly) prefer those bands to this. A better album than many in the book, but maybe too extreme for some listeners, and perhaps not the best introduction to heavy music. One for folks who won't get scared!

Feeling a little dark and brutal

Took me some time to get into Type O Negative, but now I can see the vision. R.I.P. Peter Steele 🦇🩸

Type O Negative albums are always like 20 minutes longer than they need to be, and I don't think anybody would miss those sex sound intermissions, but cool shit nonetheless. "Black No. 1" is probably the undisputed best goth metal song of all time. Peter Steele is also probably the undisputed "guy with the most powerful aura" of all time. RIP, legend. 4/5.

Such a classic. I've been a metal fan for over 20 years, but I only really 'got' Type O about 4 years ago.

I don’t know why I wasn’t listening to this high school. Good record.

Rock un tanto oscuro, aun así no excesivamente pesimista, con toques guitarreros y variedad de ritmos en su interior. Voz profunda. Para escuchar y saber valorar en un ambiente que queramos de relajación

The original list did a fair job covering metal albums (original heavy metal, thrash, glam, alternative and nu metal, etc.) but never went too far into the more niche or extreme subgenres such as doom, death, power, or black metal. One of these unrepresented subgenres includes gothic metal, a genre that blended the moody atmosphere of gothic rock (the Cure, Dead Can Dance) with the heavy riffs and rhythms of metal (Black Sabbath, Judas Priest). Early pioneers of the genre, and extremely influential pioneers at that, were Type O Negative. Frontman Peter Steele was in another band that went kaput so in the fallout was Repulsion, renamed to Sub-Zero, renamed to Type O Negative. While there were some elements of thrash (a relic from his last band), Steele was content to slow things down with a more doom-focused sound on the first two albums. It wasn't until the third, Bloody Kisses, that Type O Negative was all-in on the gothic theatrics. Steele's silky baritone vocal style combined with occasional flair from Josh Silver on keys makes the band's metal sound stand out. This is especially potent in the band's longest songs, where they become epic ballads of dark, sarcastic comedy. This stems from Steele's lyrical wit and penchant for sweeping movements of sonic passion. To this end, Bloody Kisses effectively carves out it's own memorable metal sound in a time when the genre was undergoing some heavy changes. Excellent listen from top-to-bottom. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: How deep do we go down the metal rabbithole? Gothic metal isn't exactly a notable subgenre, but I'd reckon Type O Negative is a notable band. Fuck it, add it to the list.

Some really nice tracks in there, but too much chaff to deserve 4 stars. You have to be in a very special category to pull off songs over 6 minutes, let alone an album with 6 of them.

This is cheesy as fuck, and Peter Steele has the personality of a walking nostril hair, but it's kinda fun too.

I’d like to think that the band is approaching this album with some self awareness but I don’t know enough about them to know. This album is transgressive lyrically, but is pretty typical goth rock with some late 90s/early 2000s alternative touches. Sometimes it sounds like basic commercial rock and other times is clearly leaning into gothic metal. The length was a bit much as well.

Rating: 6/10 Best songs: We hate everyone, Too late: Frozen

Why are the lyrics for Machine Screw not available?... and why would they want to remake summer breeze? ugh. It's not so bad of a goth album.

This album reminds me of the smart-but-unmotivated kid in a classroom: when on task, phenomenal. When not, the results aren't as good. It's interesting that this record takes shifts into hardcore punk ("Kill All The White People") and, weirdly, Madchester-esque-rock ("Set Me On Fire"), but it is at its best when performing the atmospheric, deep-voiced goth-metal it seems to be championed for. Favorite tracks: "Christian Woman", "Bloody Kisses"

Couldn't get into it

I never really got the hype for this band/album. A lot of their songs give me a Danzig-lite feeling so I'd rather just listen to Danzig. The weirder and punkier stuff is what I enjoy more. The album is also much too long. I could go either way between a 2 and a 3. Gonna give it a 3 I guess.

pretty alright

I really thought I was going to hate this as it started. I wasn’t in a good mood and this seemed like the last thing I’d want to listen to. Then some of the music were obvious and great additions to my Halloween playlist (Black No. 1 was the first that compelled me to add it). Then there was the surprise of realizing I was listening to a cover of Seals & Croft’s Summer Breeze (very cool!). Then there was We Hate Everyone. Yes, I was feeling this album now… OK, so goth metal isn’t going to be my genre, and this album was maybe a tad too long for me, but somehow I ended up enjoying a lot of it.

It’s a lovely chapter in the gothic metal genre. I appreciate the campy nature of the album - especially the Addams Family nod in Black No. 1. I felt lots of Danzig influence. The band lists Duran Duran as an influence. I did not feel that.

I feel very confused by this one. At first I thought oh no, but there were some songs that I thought had good riffs. It felt creative and a bit mad but also kind of fun.

Good goth rock record, wouldn’t have minded this on the main list.

I dig the music but I’m not a huge fan of the vocals or the vocal style. It fits together fine, just not what I enjoy.

Does metal just suck? Two days ago I got another metal album that was also mediocre. There has to be some good stuff in this genre right? Like if this is what is being presented, I shudder to think what isn't being included. Well at least this time the singer is actually listenable. My personal rating: 2/5 My rating relative to the list: 2.5/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

I was excited about this one, since I've heard a lot of good things about Type O Negative, but this album didn't really speak to me. I like goth, I like metal, but I don't know if goth metal is my genre because I kept waiting for this one to pick up a bit, but it just kept playing in the background without really drawing my attention 3/5

Very goth and heavy i guess? Summer Breeze cover was....unexpected. Broadly, I think it falls prey to a really thin 90's metal mix that just doesn't seem to gel sonically.

June 16, 2025 HL: title track, "Black No. 1", "Too Late", "Blood & Fire" Y'know, I just listened to this last year, looking for Halloween-appropriate music. I also listened to Welcome to My Nightmare by Alice Cooper (1975), which may well be my ideal Halloween album now. Taking away the cold winds, jack-o-lanterns and skellyboys, and replacing them with direct sunlight and a high humidex, and I report that this album doesn't hit quite as hard as the first time. Maybe the novelty of the wild genre swings and Peter Steele's theatrical vocals wore off, though I will say the album finishes better than I remember, with the proggy "Bloody Kisses" and "TOO-LATE-FOR-APOLOGIES". The thrashy "We Hate Everyone" is entertaining, but that and "Christian Woman" more closely resemble their hard rock contemporaries than the band would probably care to admit. Or they absolutely wanted that sound. I can never tell with these guys.

Pretty good, I'll have to dip into this again

This band has always been pretty unique in their space

I only listened to a couple of Type O Negative records - Bloody Kisses is one of them. It's too long, so let's get that out of the way to start with. It's a weird combination of romantic, menacing and dark. I like all that. At other times it's too punky and edgy. I don't like that. Type O Negative is best when they're droning and doomy. Luckily they are just that on most of Bloody Kisses.

Classic of goth albums. Good anthropology, but every song went a little too long for my taste

Great tone. Fits well to the dreary day

You never know how to take Type O Negative. If you take it seriously, then you're mocked for being too involved with the persona. If you take it as tongue in cheek, you're labeled a poseur.

Bloody Kisses is pretty one-speed chugging metal, not without its charms at times, but a little too plain for my personal tastes. The title track is probably my favourite though there are a couple that have good moments only to be let down by weirdness, like We Hate Everyone - the first half of that is good, the ending is not. Think it gets a 3 because I liked more than I disliked but it's too slow and broody, and not loud enough. Needs to play with the dynamics more and have more edge to properly get me going, this is just okay and generally plodding along.

Challenging this one. It started off well, but started to slump towards the end. It's like Crash Test Dummies meets Marilyn Manson. Found some songs really great, and others not so much. Overall good enough to listen to.

definitely not a bad album, had a handful of songs I particularly enjoyed, but a lot of it just feels kinda filler idk, I spent most of the album kinda waiting for it to end - 6/10

It's got some solid gothy vibes, but more jn the 90s vampire flick goth rather than the 80s party goth that I prefer. I wouldn't listen to this again, but it was decent and probably deserved to be on the main lost as a cultural tough point.

I can hear the heavy goth style reminding momentarily of Sisters of Mercy. Tends to get a little long and meandering. Not really my taste, but fun and not entirely awful. I admire their sense of humour.

Nothing really exciting here. But they tried

It was certainly was an album. The cover of Summer Breeze as metal song was interesting. I didn't hate it. It was a little long. I wont revisit. It is probably slightly better than a 2, but not much.

Musically this is fine, if a bit silly. Stylistically scattershot with dumb lyrics and comically bad vocals. "Kill All the White People" kind of rocks though. Fave Song: Set Me on Fire

This is one of the funniest albums I've ever heard. It stops just short of being a parody, but the band must have known what they were doing with the stupid lyrics and vampiric tone of the vocals. Overall, the kitsch Halloween 'spoooooooky and ghoooooouulish' vibe (mwah ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa) is quite fun and the music is pretty accessible. It's a bit long and very, very silly. Although I basically had a fun time listening to it, it's really not very good. Rating: 2 Playlist track: Set Me on Fire Date listened: 22/07/24

Not my style

The sound is actually pretty clean and seems well produced. Unfortunately what they produced seems overly serious but just comes off as dumb, laughably dumb.

It's a bit edgelordy, which leaves it feeling more than a little dated. But the clear Sabbath influence and a weird Isley Brothers cover means I didn't go away from this completely cold.

Peter Steele’s baritone is impressive and the darkly gothic vibe is fun for a few minutes, but the songwriting is just so boring and dated - and incredibly repetitive, most notably in the first couple of tracks which total 20 minutes without either song really going anywhere

I can't say I hated this but I just found it quite boring.

Goth rock - but not in the Sisters of Mercy class.

Oh dear, this seems to take itself very seriously.

Y'know those metal covers on YouTube where they cover a rock song and make it more "hardcore," and in turn miss the entire vibe of the song, and just in general aren't very good covers? Now I know where they got their ideas from. Only started to perk up at the end with the shoegaze-y final run of tracks, but those vocals are still too goofy to ever want to dig into this again.

Gothic metal, doom metal. No me ha gustado nada de nada.

ridiculously po faced and serious

Gothic metal, doom metal, alternative metal. Tostonazo. Un 1.

Ugh, overly long edgy 90s metal - not for me today.

Gothic metal, doom metal, alternative metal. Tostonazo. Un 1.