Oh yeah... this album is the shit. After their last abortion, "October Rust", the band started giving interviews saying that the next album would be ‘back to the roots’ (usually the first sign of a band’s death throes, or a band’s sellout move), but they weren’t kidding. "World Coming Down", the band’s fourth studio album, is what they should have released after 1993’s godly "Bloody Kisses" album. In a lot of ways it continues in the vein of that album - they thinned out more and more of the thrash influences and made something slow, dark, and HEAVY! Take the opener "White Slavery" - it starts with some doomily oppressive keyboard work before the sludgey main guitar riff explodes in, and for the next eight minutes the song just trudges along with long, ringing notes and Peter Steele’s fantastic vocals (he really has a knack for singing mournful, melodic vocal lines that go absolutely nowhere near being gay in the slightest). This song, "Everyone I love is Dead," and the title track "World Coming Down" are all highlights in the slow deathy vein - but it just wouldn’t be a Type O album without some fucking around. The song "Pyretta Blaze" is another good one which wanders a bit off into psychedelic/beatlesque territory, but does it well; there’s also a Beatles medley on here that’s well-done IMO (it includes sludgey, slow as fuck parts of "I Want You (She’s So Heavy)" and "Day Tripper", among others); and finally there are those ‘noise-effect’ tracks which work well (like "Lung", which follows "White Slavery" - one listen and you’ll know what he’s sniffing about....:) Top quality and truly back to their roots, "World Coming Down" is on par with "Bloody Kisses" and highly recommended.

© 2000 lord vic