Artist: TYPE O NEGATIVE
Album: WORLD COMING DOWN (CD)

Release date: 1999
Media type: CD

World Coming Down is the fifth album by Brooklyn band Type O Negative. Even though the band has often expressed dark themes through their music, the lyrical content of this album is markedly morbid.

The first song, "White Slavery", deals with cocaine addiction. "All Hallows Eve" deals with Peter Steele apparently selling his soul to Lucifer. Two other songs, "Everyone I Love Is Dead" and "Everything Dies," touch on the difficulties of watching family members and loved ones die. The band's awkward, almost ironic, and dirgeful song "Who Will Save the Sane?" incorporates Peter Steele reciting the first eight digits from the mathematical number pi (3.1415926). At the same time during this song, Kenny Hickey's melody is actually 31415926 in notated guitar tablature (the guitar being tuned in Drop D). The album contains three "soundscape" tracks, which are named after internal organs, as segues between songs. Each of these songs is intended to focus on the possible deaths band members may suffer: "Sinus" as death from cocaine use, "Liver" as death through alcohol abuse, and "Lung" as death by smoking. Also featured is a cover song medley of Beatles songs.

As with the band's previous album, October Rust, this album also features a "joke intro": in this case, the intro, appropriately titled "Skip It", is 11 seconds of staccato band noise, meant to sound as if the listener's CD player is skipping. The track ends with what is presumably guitarist Kenny Hickey shouting, "Sucker!"

Presently, the band has mixed opinions about the music on World Coming Down. Keyboardist and producer Josh Silver feels that the music is strong, while bassist and principle songwriter Peter Steele has said the songs are too strongly connected to an uncomfortable period in his life, and describes the production as "too many cooks spoiling the soup". Live shows performed since the initial tour to support World Coming Down usually featured very few, if any, selections from the album in the set list.

TRACKLIST:

"Skip It" – 0:11
"White Slavery" – 8:21
"Sinus" – 0:53
"Everyone I Love Is Dead" – 6:11
"Who Will Save the Sane?" – 6:41
"Liver" – 1:42
"World Coming Down" – 11:10
"Creepy Green Light" – 6:56
"Everything Dies" – 7:43
"Lung" – 1:36
"Pyretta Blaze" – 6:57
"All Hallows Eve" – 8:35
"Day Tripper (medley)" – 7:02

LINE-UP:

Peter Steele – Lead vocals, bass guitar, guitar, and keyboards
Josh Silver – Keyboards and backing vocals
Kenny Hickey – Guitars and backing vocals
Johnny Kelly – Drums and backing vocals