Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses [Green/Black Swirl]

Bloody Kisses is the record that made Type O Negative more than a Brooklyn in-joke. Released in 1993, it was the first album on Roadrunner Records to be certified gold, and it did it without a single concession to what metal radio wanted. Peter Steele sings in a register most singers cannot reach, Josh Silver buries everything in keyboards, and songs regularly run past eight minutes without apology.

"Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)" is the calling card, eleven minutes of goth-girl satire that turns into genuine affection somewhere around the third chorus, and it has outlived every band that tried to copy it. "Christian Woman" opens the album with the same trick, sacrilege played so slowly it becomes seductive. "Too Late: Frozen" and "Blood & Fire" are the record's heart, and the cover of Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze" is performed with total sincerity, which is somehow funnier than a joke version would have been.

Steele and Silver produced it themselves at Systems Two, and the album's success came from word of mouth rather than promotion. Paul Bento's sitar and tambura turn up where you least expect them.

This 30th Anniversary edition, subtitled Suspended in Dusk, is a double LP on green and black swirled vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with a four-page 12-inch inlay, remastered for vinyl by Pete Weiss and pressed at Record Industry.