Type O Negative

Viking-metal mainstays Amon Amarth have entered their unplugged stage. Today (July 8th), and for the first time ever, the Swedish quintet delivered a rustic and entirely acoustically-strummed anthem that they call “Upphaf.” The song chimes into focus with acoustic strums and propulsive, elemental percussion. Above all that, frontman Johan Hegg unearths a craggy, legend-casting croak about “old tales of men I recall from long ago,” including “giants of yore who gave me bread in the days gone by.” A press release further explains that “Upphaf” acts as “an oral history whispered under the shadow of the Allfather, proving [Amon Amarth’s] interest in Oden cuts just as deep by firelight as it does on epic global stages.” You can check out the aesthetically softer but no less epic addition to Amon Amarth’s Norse myth-borne songbook via the music video up above, which finds the band intoning their tale around a campfire. Amon Amarth’s “Upphaf” follows last year’s bombastic, battle-driven and decidedly more electrified “We Rule the Waves” single. Proper details have not yet been shed behind Amon Amarth’s full-length follow-up to 2022’s The Great Heathen Army, but a studio album is in the works. In the meantime, Amon Amarth have a number of upcoming shows on the horizon across Europe. You’ll find the full details on their live schedule here.

This week's 'Do I Suck?' submission might make you question your own music taste when it comes to getting down in the bedroom.

The United States of America just celebrated its 250th birthday. A major milestone, for sure, but what’s even wilder to consider is that just over a fifth of the country’s history has been defined, in part, by the sound of metal. From sea-to-shining-sea, the U.S. has produced innumerable artists that have thrown heavy-music fans into a headbanging frenzy for decades. From the thrash trailblazers, to the original gods of hardcore, to the grunge-era greats, to the New Wave of American Heavy Metal and beyond, plenty of iconic stars have shot out of the Land of the Free. But who is the greatest single U.S. metal act of all time? We asked our readers to weigh in on their favorites, and they saluted the top five accordingly. Type O Negative Banded out of the borough of Brooklyn, the Drab Four melded metal gloom, gothic romance and a bit of shock humor into a sound entirely of their own. The unique blend as preserved on classic albums like Bloody Kisses and October Rust transfixed countless listeners around the globe, cementing Type O as one of the premiere U.S. metal acts of their generation. TOOL While TOOL’s mind-boggling progressive complexity seems to exist out of time and space, it’s true that the group got their start in the early Nineties while performing around Los Angeles, California. They quickly astral-projected themselves off the Sunset Strip and into the third eyes of a legion of fans, moving from the moody, synapse-firing explorations of Undertow and Ænima all the way up to 2019’s Fear Inoculum — and hopefully beyond. Slayer Slayer’s music has shown no mercy since the dawn of the Eighties. And the all-out-menacing aesthetic of their catalog — coalescing around thrash-blitzed beats, defiantly off-the-hilt guitar soloing and the incensed, vein-popping scream of bassist Tom Araya — elevated the genre into a new level of extremity. Though their themes could sometimes be Satanic, Slayer also took a tough look at the world around them, casting a critical gaze towards the plight of soldiers out on the battlefield (“Mandatory Suicide”) and the PTSD many have suffered in the aftermath (“Eyes of the Insane”). No matter what topics they took on, the music always hit hard. Pantera For many, the Cowboys of Hell are not just the official soundtrack of Texas — as our readers voted in another recent poll — but one of the biggest pillars of U.S. metal, period. For proof, check the war chest full of all-timers like “Walk,” “Primal Concrete Sledge,” “5 Minutes Alone,” “Cemetery Gates,” “I’m Broken” and so many more. Indeed, once the Lonestate legends pushed past their Power Metal period, they delivered a intensely grooving and exquisitely vulgar series of full-length statements that remain beloved to this day. Replete with Dimebag Darrell’s super-scooped guitar wizardry, Vinnie Paul’s cannon-fire double-kickin’, Rex Brown’s bonesaw bass grooves and Philip Anselmo’s take-no-prisoners bark, the classic lineup was a gamechanger. Truly, an American band like no other. Metallica Give me fuel. Give me fire. Give me liberty or give me death. ‘Tallica are the world’s biggest metal band and have been for decades. Despite having formed in Los Angeles, California, they’ve also been brand ambassadors for the Bay Area thrash uprising of the Eighties, exemplifying the greatest feats of the then-trailblazing sound through a series of classic albums. Metallica have sung of the horrors of war (“One,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls”) and the fight for American liberty (“Don’t Tread on Me”). While U.S. by nature, they continue to rally metalheads around the globe to unite under the borderless banner of heavy metal.

A review of Far from God by Moonspell, available July 3rd worldwide via Napalm Records.

Type O Negative have earned their first gold-certified single in the United States with "I Don't Wanna Be Me."The RIAA officially certified the track gold on June 15th. It originally appeared as the sole single from...

There's still some life in "Life Is Killing Me".

Major Parkinson have launched a concept album exploring the fall of the USA – via Elvis. “When you deal with the apocalypse you should make it fun,” they say

On June 15, TYPE O NEGATIVE's "I Don't Wanna Be Me" single was certified gold by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association Of America) for accumulating 500,000 certified units. According to the RIAA, one equivalent song unit is equal to a single digital song sale, or 150 on-demand audio and/or video...

Bloody Kisses made Type O Negative the biggest band on Roadrunner Records, its follow-up cemented them as goth metal's most iconic band

I Don't Wanna Be Me is one of Type Of Negative's hallmark songs, but the story of its conception was, typically, surrounded by controversy, mayhem and a dose of black humour

From HIM to Evanescence, Type O Negative to Misfits, these are the greatest albums released in the goth metal pantheon

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.