Music / October Rust

Am I good enough for you?

October Rust is the third album of original material by Type O Negative, released on August 20, 1996, by Roadrunner Records. This is the first album to feature drummer Johnny Kelly, though his contributions were done with a drum machine. This album is less doomy and has more ballads than usual. Peter Steele's dark humor is also mostly absent. It is also the only album after debut Slow, Deep and Hard not to feature a lead vocal from guitarist Kenny Hickey.

Track list:

1. "Bad Ground" (0:38)
2. (untitled) (0:21)
3. "Love You to Death" (7:08)
4. "Be My Druidess" (5:25)
5. "Green Man" (5:47)
6. "Red Water (Christmas Mourning)" (6:48)
7. "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend" (3:48)
8. "Die With Me" (7:12)
9. "Burnt Flowers Fallen" (6:09)
10. "In Praise of Bacchus" (7:36)
11. "Cinnamon Girl" (Neil Young cover) (4:00)
12. "The Glorious Liberation of the People's Technocratic Republic of Vinnland by the Combined Forces of the United Territories of Europa" (1:07)
13. "Wolf Moon (Including Zoanthropic Paranoia)" (6:37)
14. "Haunted" (10:07)
15. (untitled) (0:08)

Principal members:

• Peter Steele - Lead vocals, bass
• Kenny Hickey - Guitar, backing vocals
• Josh Silver - Keyboards, backing vocals
• Johnny Kelly - Drum programming

Now close those eyes and let me trope you to death:

• Album Closure: The second untitled track is an ending message from Peter.
• Album Intro Track: Two of them. "Bad Ground" is a joke track consisting of 38 seconds of low-level buzzing intended to make the listener think the audio leads were incorrectly plugged in. This leads to the first untitled track, with the band members acknowledging the joke and introducing themselves. The first proper song ("Love You to Death") is the third track.
• Anti-Christmas Song: "Red Water (Christmas Mourning)," which may just be the single most depressing Christmas song ever. It includes an interlude of Josh Silver playing the Christmas carol "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen".
• Breather Episode:
  • "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend", one of the only upbeat songs on the album, is sandwiched between the bleak "Red Water (Christmas Mourning)" and the string of lengthy ballads starting with the semi-acoustic "Die With Me".
  • The cover of "Cinnamon Girl" comes after the same string of ballads.
• Cerebus Syndrome: There is little humor here compared to most of their other albums, especially Bloody Kisses.
• Cover Version: "Cinnamon Girl" was originally by Neil Young.
• Darker and Edgier: This album goes full bore into this trope, which, apart from a couple joke skits, is mostly entirely VERY dark, serious ballads about break-ups, betrayal, self-loathing, and death.
• Drowning My Sorrows: The title of "Red Water (Christmas Mourning)" indicates that the singer is drowning his sorrows with red wine.
• Epic Rocking: "Love You to Death" (7:08), "Red Water (Christmas Mourning)" (6:48), "Die With Me" (7:12), "Burnt Flowers Fallen" (6:09), "Wolf Moon (Including Zoanthropic Paranoia)" (6:37), and "Haunted" (10:07).
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: Exaggerated in "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend"; the singer goes into detail that not only do his girlfriend and her girlfriend have sex together, they both have sex with him too.
  "They keep me warm on cold nights,
  We must be quite a sight,
  In our meat triangle,
  All tangled,
  Wow!"
• Lighter and Softer: Zig-zagged: This is lyrically a bleaker release than previous releases, but it is musically the softest with virtually no Doom Metal present.
• Limited Lyrics Song:
  • The second half of "Be My Druidess" is repetitions of "I'll do anything to make you cum."
  • "Burnt Flowers Fallen" is pretty much just repetitions of "Yeah, I think she's falling out of love" and "All of the flowers I gave her, she burned them."
• Longest Song Goes Last: Longest, then outro. "Haunted" (10:07) precedes the untitled outro track (0:08).
• No Title: The second and last tracks are listed as blank spaces on the back cover.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • The caption on the band photo:
    "Functionless art is simply tolerated vandalism. We are the vandals."
  • Peter's message at the end of the album seems to acknowledge this album having a more depressing tone compared to previous releases:
    "I hope it wasn't too disappointing."
• Spoken Word in Music: "Haunted" incudes a spoken passage.
• Thanking the Viewer: From Johnny Kelly in first untitled track.
  "We'd like to thank you for picking up out latest recording of October Rust."

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