Type O Negative - October Rust [Green/Black Marble]

After the black-and-green nihilism of Bloody Kisses, Type O Negative made an autumn record. October Rust arrived in 1996 draped in orange and brown, softer and slower and considerably weirder than anything Peter Steele had done before, and it is the album most devotees eventually name as their favourite.

It opens with two joke tracks, a burst of amplifier hum and a twenty-one-second apology for it, which tells you the band's sense of humour survived intact. Then "Love You To Death" arrives and runs for seven minutes of Josh Silver's cathedral organ, Kenny Hickey's clean-toned guitar and Steele's basso profundo turned all the way toward romance. "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend" is the closest the band ever came to a pop single. "Wolf Moon" and "Haunted" occupy the back half at enormous length, and the cover of Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" is played completely straight and works perfectly.

Silver and Steele produced it themselves at Systems Two in Brooklyn, and the arrangements are far more layered than the doom tag suggests: sitar, tambura, layered vocal choirs, and space left everywhere for the low end to bloom.

This 2024 Rocktober reissue comes as a double LP on green and black marbled vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with an exclusive poster, remastered for vinyl by Pete Weiss and pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands.