World Coming Down is the fifth studio album by the gothic metal band Type O Negative. Released on September 21, 1999, it is considered to be the darkest of the band’s releases, having been written after a series of deaths in frontman Peter Steele‘s family, combined with the desire to break away from the sexually charged themes of the previous albums.
It was also the band’s first album to reach the Top 40 on the Billboard 200. As with the band’s previous album, October Rust, this album also has a ‘joke intro’: in this case, “Skip It”, 11 seconds of staccato band noise meant to sound as if the listener’s CD player is skipping. Contrary to common belief, Cassette versions did not have the noise of a tape being ‘eaten’ by the tape player, it was actually the same as in CD version.
However, 2019 released None More Negative vinyl box set re-issue and 2020 released stand-alone vinyl version begins as if the record is damaged and stuck in a locked groove during the intro of “White Slavery”. The track ends with the band’s guitarist, Kenny Hickey, shouting “Sucker!”
The first song, “White Slavery”, deals with cocaine addiction. Two other songs, “Everyone I Love Is Dead” and “Everything Dies”, touch on the difficulties of watching family members and loved ones die. Another track, “Who Will Save the Sane?”, which deals with mental illness and psychiatry, incorporates Steele reciting the number pi to 9 decimal places (3.141592653).
The album contains three “soundscape” tracks, which are named after internal organs, as segues between songs. Each of these songs is intended to suggest the possibilities of the deaths the members of the band may have suffered at the time:
“Sinus” as death from cocaine use, “Liver” as death through alcohol abuse and “Lung” as death from smoking. In an ironic foreboding, Steele once told a close friend that he could not bear to listen to “Sinus” after it was mixed and completed, because the sound of the heartbeat escalating to its furious pace after the cocaine-snorting sound effect actually drove him to the point of an anxiety attack because of its realism.
Tracklist:
- Skip It
- White Slavery
- Sinus
- Everyone I Love Is Dead
- Who Will Save the Sane?
- Liver
- World Coming Down
- Creepy Green Light
- Everything Dies
- Lung
- Pyretta Blaze
- All Hallows Eve
- Day Tripper (Medley) (The Beatles cover)
Type O Negative
Peter Steele: lead vocals, bass, additional guitars and keyboards
Kenny Hickey: guitars, backing vocals, co-lead vocals (on “World Coming Down” and “All Hallows Eve”)
Josh Silver: keyboards, synthesizers, sound effects, electronic and drum programming, backing vocals
Johnny Kelly: drums, percussion, backing vocals
Additional Musicians
Paul Bento: sitar, tamboura (on “World Coming Down” and “Day Tripper (Medley)”)
Richard Termini: additional keyboards (on “Pyretta Blaze”)
Production
Michael Marciano: recording engineer
George Marino: mastering
Vincent Soyez: photography
Mike Curry: design
Noel Wiggins: design
Peter Steele (January 4, 1962 – April 14, 2010).
