Bloody Kisses
was
Type O Negative
's major step forward, maintaining the long, repetitive song structures of albums past, but adding more atmospheric synths and left-field
Beatlesque
pop
melodies. The quantum leap in songwriting is what really drives the album, but it also coincides with a newfound sense of subtlety. Aside from a couple of smart-aleck rants,
Peter Steele
's dark, melodramatic songs address heartbreak and loneliness in what sounds at first like deadly serious overkill. But not far beneath the surface, he's also satirizing his own emotional excesses, and those of
goth rock
in general.
Steele
's lyrics gleefully wallow in
goth
cliches -- sex, death, Christianity, vampires, more sex, and death -- and he even sings most of the album in an intentionally vampiric croon straight from the depths of an ancient crypt. Among other things, that delivery lends hilarious irony to a glum cover of
Seals & Crofts
'
soft rock
hit
"Summer Breeze"
; it's also perfect for the deadpan mockery of the
-girl character sketch
"Black No. 1."
Hardly any of the songs need to be as long as they are, but that ridiculous excess is all part of
's sly, twistedly affectionate send-up of
conventions. Though it sounds like a funeral,
' airy melodicism and '90s-style irony actually breathed new life into the flagging
goth metal
genre, and the album is an often overlooked forerunner to
alternative metal
's limited appropriation of
style. ~ Steve Huey