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Type O Negative > Love You to Death > Reviews
Type O Negative - Love You to Death

Peter's so called sell out. - 86%

hells_unicorn, July 15th, 2007

Peter Steele is a very complex man, that much can be gleaned from his extensive work both with Type O Negative and Carnivore. His complexity has a hint of sarcasm and satire that is often lost on his audience, which is made up of a mishmash of hardcore fans, Goths, doom metal heads, and punk rock enthusiasts. One area where this particular single seems to differ from the rest is that his ironic sense of humor is not present anywhere in this song. It is offensive enough to the sensibilities of religious kooks with its references to the beast inside him, but it’s otherwise a rather touching love song to one of his several romances. One could call him a Gothic Cassanova in this particular capacity, a noble wolf in search of his Little Red Riding Hood.

“Love you to Death” appears on here in two versions, the first being the radio edit that was also the version heard on the music video. It is among the better radio edits in that it mostly omits repeated sections that are not really missed, although you can definitely sense a big difference in the duration of the two. The intro is very atmospheric; including a cello, piano, synthesizers, and Steele’s low husky baritone singing words of undying devotion to his love victim. In usual fashion what follows is a rather simple riff that co-exists with the dense atmosphere, driven along by a heavily distorted bass line. There isn’t much of a guitar solo to speak of, save a few slow bended notes that seem to fade in and out of the arrangement at a few key points. Everything is focused on a singular atmosphere that functions as a background to Steele’s heartfelt soliloquy. The accompanying song is an extremely long version of the Seals and Crofts cover from “Bloody Kisses”, displaying in a longer fashion Steele’s unique ability to twist a pop/rock song into something that is extremely spooky sounding.

I remember hearing a lot of fans of Type O Negative back when this came out complaining that Peter Steele was selling out by writing gooey love songs rather than sticking to his usual stuff. Perhaps I was being a bit unreasonable at the time but I found it humorous that these people were criticizing Steele for essentially not pandering to what they wanted, calling it selling out. If I found it funny, I am certain that Peter was probably laughing his ass off at these so-called fans, who somehow seemed to conclude that because they bought his last album that Peter and company were somehow obligated to keep regurgitating the exact same stuff over and over. One of the pitfalls of commercial success is that every clown out in the scene will think they know what is best for you, and not surprisingly the band has taken it in stride and actually made fun of these fools and simultaneously getting them to pay money to listen to songs deriding them. If that isn’t genius, I’m not sure what is.