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Type O Negative > Cinnamon Girl > Reviews
Type O Negative - Cinnamon Girl

Depressed Mode meets Neil Young. - 82%

hells_unicorn, July 15th, 2007

Type O Negative have solidified themselves as one of the premier bands in twisting around older rock/pop songs into dark, twisted, heavy monstrosities that are able to attract a fairly sizable audience. The combination of Peter Steele’s extremely low yet wide vocal range and the band’s unique ability at producing their own material have made them an outlier in the musical spectrum of the 90s, where pretty much everything else was processed for consumption by the recording labels. There is likely a strong case to be made that this band’s unique brand of creative genius is what paved the way for every act that ended up on Roadrunner Records, not the least of which being Cradle of Filth.

“Cinnamon Girl” was originally a popular Neil Diamond song, but it ceased to be that the minute this band got their filthy minds and hands on it. Now it exists in several hideous incarnations, the one that is the subject of my ears this hour being the aptly titled “Depressed Mode” version. The arrangement is pretty similar to that of a Depeche Mode song, obviously the result of Peter’s ever-present sarcasm, and loaded with odd sounding studio effects. Peter’s voice sounds like it’s coming from some distant mountain half the time, while the guitars are so loud and dark that your ear drums start to buckle under the pressure. I’m certain that this unfortunate event which befell his innocent creation likely gave Neil Diamond nightmares for a good couple of month.

The accompanying track is a shorter version of the famed single “Love you to Death”, off of the same album. Pretty much fashioned for radio consumption, and apparently the radio played it a bit as the album it came off of did rather well. It is interesting to note the lack of Peter’s sarcasm in this rather dark yet serious ballad as opposed to the previous song on here, which is so ironically satirical that it hurts. You get the picture of two conjoined twins trying desperately to separate each other when you listen to the two back to back.

In short, a rather large kudos goes out to Type O Negative for milking this single for all it was worth and actually manipulating the sound enough that I’m sure several of the band’s core-fans probably poured out money to pick up all four versions of this single. If anything, there is probably the potential for a series of rarity collection for the band to live like kings off of when their creative well starts to run dry. Everything in life can be summed up as a commercial venture of sorts, the difference is does the product fit the price, and in this case I think the answer is a resounding yes.