Type O Negative

Sun Dont Shine have released a new music video for their song "All You Wasted." The sludge metal supergroup featuring members of Crowbar, Type O Negative, Down and more included the track on their debut album From B...

The latest visual offering from the sludge metal supergroup.

Death. Pain. Doomed romance. Existential dread. Goth music has a penchant for prodding at the psyche through some of the heaviest themes imaginable. And yet, things get even heavier once you add a pinch of metal to the mix. Enter gothic metal. It’s a winning combination: goth music’s bleakest and most romantic tendencies merging with blasted guitars, death-style growls and other assorted markers of the metal scene. And the results come up big, having left generations of listeners swooning to the gloomiest of gloom tunes. So, we asked our readers who did it best. Here’s the thing: We had to split hairs this week. While folks showed up in the comments with a flood of votes for arguably more traditionally goth-coded greats like Fields of the Nephilim, Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy — the latter were voted in by none other than Crowbar’s Kirk Windstein — we tried our best to stick to the decidedly more metallic side of the sound. My Dying Bride A favorite of fallen angels around the world, My Dying Bride have been keeping things exquisitely, achingly gloomy for more than 35 years. Their songbook has involved macabre-metallic anthems, glacial despair, weeping string sections and more, all of this supporting the downtrodden groans, growls and dark-crooned musings of founding vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe — who left the band in 2025. Paradoxically, their songs of darkness have brought music fans into a world of light. Lacuna Coil Even before delivering an album of this name in 2012, the music of Italian mainstays Lacuna Coil was giving listeners a massive shot of dark adrenaline. Crunching metal guitars, synth-phonic flourishes and the towering, dynamic emotivity between clean-unclean vocalists Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro have driven the band’s sound for 10 mesmerizing albums. Throughout, they’ve delivered gothic gravitas, stadium-sized anthems, and a boomingly moody redux of Depeche Mode’s Violator classic “Enjoy the Silence.” HIM Gothic metal to some, Love Metal to others, it’s clear that folks still have a heart-on for Finnish outfit HIM. How did the band manage to pull so many fans right into their arms, you ask? Part of the draw is the inky and super sigh-worthy baritone belting of lead singer Ville Valo, while it can’t be understated that the group s swirl of classic goth and Eighties metal has yielded some of the greatest lovesongs ever. A high profile co-sign from Jackass alum Bam Margera in the early Aughts helped grow their fanbase, too. They’ve inspired devotion in fans around the world, some even branding themselves with the band’s familiar Heartagram logo. Paradise Lost It’s not for nothing that longtime gloomsmiths Paradise Lost named their 1991 sophomore LP Gothic. For that matter, it’s also telling that the act made a record called Icon — twice. After all, Paradise Lost helped set the bar for ebon-crested heaviness as we know it. Formed at the tail end of the Eighties, Paradise Lost initially infused their love of thrash, death metal and U.K. goth into their own uniquely obsidian aesthetic. Across 17 full-lengths, they’ve explored growled-out death marches, funereal woe, storm-clouded synth-pop and more. It’s a rich and diverse catalog, and the fans entered our comments this week to hail the Yorkshire-formed Shadowkings. Type O Negative We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Our readers really have a Type. While crypt-croaking crooner Peter Steele was sometimes called the “Green Man,” for many gothic-metal fans there’s none more black than Type O Negative. Truly, the darkest bits of their catalog unfold as fascinating reflections on death, depression, sex and heartache. Yet they also possessed a bewitching gallows humor to manage the damage. Check how the Drab Four wielded gloominess in menacing, misanthropic fashion on dour and damned heavy pieces like “Everything Dies,” but vamped through campy, Munster-mentioning ghoulishness on “Black No. 1” and combusted through carnal rituals on the lusty “Be My Druidess.” Their darkness reflected all kinds of emotion. Type O have soundtracked goth fans’ lives for decades, and remain a band they love to death.

SUN DONT SHINE (formerly EYE AM),the band featuring Kirk Windstein (guitar, vocals; CROWBAR, DOWN, KINGDOM OF SORROW) alongside former TYPE O NEGATIVE members Kenny Hickey (guitar/vocals) and Johnny Kelly (drums),plus Todd Strange (CROWBAR, DOWN),has released the official music video for the song...

The Big Apple. The City that Never Sleeps. NYC. Call it what you will, but it’s hard to argue this: The U.S.’ biggest city has produced a ton of incredible bands over the years. And this, of course, includes all things heavy. New York City has been home to countless musical revolutions, from Broadway revues and the Greenwich Village folk scene, to the first eclectic wave of punk that hit CBGB and Max’s Kansas City in the Seventies, to the hip-hop innovators and NYHC matinees of the Eighties, to the garage-rock revival of the early Aughts and beyond. But out of those, what is the greatest single heavy band to come out of the five boroughs? The one that made it there before conquering everywhere else? We asked our readers this very question, and they ranked their favorite New Yorkers accordingly. Life of Agony A flood of votes came in for the classic River Runs Red-makers, whose method of groove comes across as a moody blend of NYHC aggression, downcast alternative melodies, and metal heft — all of which supporting the familiar boom-crooned pensiveness of vocalist Keith Caputo. Since emerging out of Brooklyn at the tail end of the Eighties, their soul-searching sound has connected with countless heavy music fans, including the many fans who voted for them here. Sick of It All You want the truth? Sick of It All are one of New York’s most cherished heavy institutions, and the votes this week only serve to confirm this. Formed by brothers Lou and Pete Koller, the band were integral in defining the chunk-forward metallic groove of NYHC, though gang-sung classics like “Step Down” also suggested that SOIA had a knack for anthemic songcraft. Scratch beyond the surface and you’ll find street-smart toughness, mosh-bounced killers, and heavy hooks that are built to last. Helmet Though Helmet leader Page Hamilton was born in Oregon, his iconic alt-metal band cut their teeth in the NYC scene with drop-tuned, game-changing guitar brutalism. Hamilton had studied jazz guitar at the Manhattan School of Music, which informed how he incorporated gorgeously sophisticated chord phrasings and cerebral shred into his band’s otherwise concrete-crushing rhythmic slam. Records like Meantime and Betty still resonate with their heavy, yet harmonically-rich aesthetic. Hardly “unsung,” Helmet remain favorites among our readers Anthrax Formed in the belly of a borough, Anthrax strike a unique note as the Big Apple contingent of thrash’s otherwise California-based Big 4. The Queens-made kings of East Coast thrash have maintained a hell of a presence since forming in the early Eighties, delivering metal-codifying anthems across an incredible career. Throughout, Anthrax have crafted a songbook that balances aggressively rhythmic, pit-inducing intensity (see “Caught in a Mosh,” most obviously) with moments of prankster levity, rap-metal crossover and undeniable shred. It’s all put them on a global stage for five decades running — Anthrax’s “madhouse” extends well beyond the borders of NYC. Type O Negative Let’s just say our readers have a Type. By leaps and bounds, the Drab Four came out on top this week — Black No. 1 with a bullet, if you will. That glory all comes down to the way the Brooklynites managed to transcend their crossover heritage — as Carnivore — and blossom into a rosewater-and-rust-scented goth-metal juggernaut. The romance. The brooding. The legendarily horny and hypnotizing baritone of one Peter Steele. They may have hated everyone, but metal fans from NYC and beyond will always blow bloody kisses Type O’s way. Indeed, they still love them to death.

Did we get No. 1 right?

It's been an entertaining week in metal, with everything from newly surfaced Type O Negative music to the passing of David Allen Coe taking place.