Music / World Coming Down

I've lost myself again.

World Coming Down is the fourth album of original material by Type O Negative. It was released on September 21, 1999, through Roadrunner Records. Inspired by a series of deaths in frontman Peter Steele's family, this is considered to be the band's darkest album. It also has themes of drug addiction and mental illness. Doomier than preceding album October Rust, this is also one of the heaviest Type O Negative albums. Intense to the point that Steele couldn't bring himself to listen to the finished product, only a handful of songs were played live. Of those, only the title track remained a regular until the end of the end of Steele's and the band's life.

Track list:

1. "Skip It" (0:11)
2. "White Slavery" (8:22)
3. "Sinus" (0:53)
4. "Everyone I Love Is Dead" (6:11)
5. "Who Will Save the Sane?" (6:41)
6. "Liver" (1:42)
7. "World Coming Down" (11:10)
8. "Creepy Green Light" (7:00)
9. "Everything Dies" (7:44)
10. "Lung" (1:36)
11. "Pyretta Blaze" (7:02)
12. "All Hallows Eve" (8:36)
13. "Day Tripper Medley" (The Beatles cover) (7:02)

Principal members:

• Peter Steele - Lead vocals, bass
• Kenny Hickey - Guitar, backing and lead vocals
• Josh Silver - Keyboards, backing vocals, drum programming (uncredited)
• Johnny Kelly - Drums (credit only), backing vocals

Yeah, I know that my tropes are coming down:

• Album Intro Track: "Skip It" is a joke track made to sound like the CD is skipping.
• Back from the Dead: "Creepy Green Light" and "All Hallows Eve" deal with bringing lovers back from their graves. The latter involves the narrator exchanging his soul for her return.
• Breather Episode: Although this is the darkest Type O Negative album, there are a couple of optimistic tracks:
  • "Creepy Green Light" is sandwiched between the the bleak title track and the mournful "Everything Dies". It has the narrator successfully bringing his lover Back from the Dead without any known repercussions.
  • "Pyretta Blaze" is a song about commitment that is sandwiched between the death soundscape "Lung" and the Deal with the Devil song "All Hallows Eve".
• Chronic Self-Deprecation: The title track.
  "I'm so fortunate yet filled with self hate"
• The Cover Changes the Meaning: The cover of The Beatles' "Day Tripper" is transformed a lighthearted ode to LSD into a mournful lament on being driven to suicide by an apathetic lover.
• Darker and Edgier: This is the darkest Type O Negative album and one of their heaviest, dropping the sexually-charged lyrics of previous albums and bringing back the Doom Metal that was mostly dropped on October Rust.
• Deal with the Devil: The narrator of "All Hallows Eve" sells his soul to bring his lover Back from the Dead.
• Drugs Are Bad:
  • "White Slavery" is a bleak song about suffering from cocaine addiction.
  • Soundscape tracks "Sinus", "Liver", and "Lung" depict agonizing deaths relating to cocaine, alcohol, and nicotine, respectively.
• Epic Rocking: All of the songs, excluding the intro and soundscape tracks, are longer than six minutes, the longest being the title track (11:10).
• Format-Specific Joke: "Skip It" is made to sound like the CD is skipping. Contrary to the popular belief, this was not changed for the cassette edition, though the 2019 vinyl reissue changes it to make it sound like the record is broken before a Record Needle Scratch leads to Kenny Hickey's "Sucker!"
• Grief Song: "Everyone I Love Is Dead" and "Everything Dies" are inspired by a series of deaths of people in Peter Steele's life.
• Halloween Songs: "Creepy Green Light" and, as the name suggests, "All Hallows Eve" are both set on Halloween.
• The Lost Lenore: "Creepy Green Light" and "All Hallows Eve" both deal with visiting the graves of lovers and trying to bring them Back from the Dead.
• Medley: "Day Tripper Medley" has the following Beatles songs: "Day Tripper" > "If I Needed Someone" > "Day Tripper (reprise)" > "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". The band learned the hard way that they had to pay a lot of money to use those songs.
• No Ending: The "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" section of ends "Day Tripper Medley" and the album abruptly as it did for side one of ''Abbey Road".
• Step Up to the Microphone: Kenny Hickey has a small co-lead on the title track and a more prominent one on "All Hallows Eve". He also has the "Sucker!" at the end of "Skip It".

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"Stinger!"

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