Type-O Negative: The Origin of the Feces Review

I have no excuse this time around for why I'm late, other than the fact that I was lazy, and even when I did remember, I was way too tired to actually post anything up. I keep trying to have a consistent schedule, but I'm just not having any luck. I'm hoping that I can buckle down soon and actually release things on time.

Enough trying to suck up and stuff, cause I got my 3rd music review today! Without any more delays, here's a look at Type-O Negative's second album, The Origin of the Feces.

Background

(Original Cover)

(2nd Edition Cover)

Type-O Negative has always released great albums, but none quite as interesting as The Origin of the Feces. Supposedly recorded on Halloween Night at Brighton Beach, the album actually was released on May 12, 1992. Origin of the Feces was interesting in the fact that the band had put in noises to sound like an actual live album. All of the crowd noises, banter with the fake audience, and even a bomb threat during the end of one of the songs (this was due to controversy during the European leg of their Slow, Deep, and Hard tour). Just as interesting to not is the fact that the majority of the songs on the album were taken from Slow, Deep, and Hard (with the exception of three songs), the songs names were miswritten on purpose, and the band themselves even played the songs poorly on purpose to make the whole album sound as if it was live.

The Origin of the Feces is also notable in the fact that it started off their tradition of covering songs of famous singers with their distinct gothic metal style. Hey Pete is a adaptation of Jimi Hendrix's song Hey Joe, and they also covered Black Sabbath's infamous song Paranoid, which also contains the main riff to Iron Man at the half way point.

Songs
I Know Your Fucking Someone Else:  Originally named "Unsuccessfully Coping With the Natural Beauty of Infidelity", there really are no differences between the lyrics within this and the original, but it's with the sound effects placed in that make it different. At the beginning, you hear the pretend crowd shouting "you suck!" at the band. In response, Pete Steel in response belittles the crowd, then starts the song. He even stops right about at the halfway point, and sings that part of the song without instrumentation, all the while heckling the crowd that is heckling him. Typical Type-O Negative dry humor, and I like it.

Are You Afraid: This is only one of three original songs on the album, and it's a quick one at that. At just 2 minutes and 15 seconds, Are You Afraid starts out slow, but picks up speed and becomes a bit more fast paced. As for the lyrics, well, take a look below: 

"Are you afraid
afraid to die?
Don't be afraid
afraid to try"

"Are you afraid
afraid to die?
Don't be afraid
of suicide"

"Just take that razor blade
and cut your wrist
down to the bone
and die laughing"

"Are you afraid
afraid to die?
Don't be afraid
afraid to try
suicide"

Whether this was meant to be an insult towards the crowd, or a way to taunt people who think about suicide, is never really determined. What is determined is that this is a morbidly dark song, and it adds more to Type-O Negative's macabre nature.

Gravity: Originally named "Gravitational Constant: G = 6.67 x 10-8 cm-3 gm-1 sec-2", this song has no real difference in terms of lyrics, nor does it have an real difference as far as instrumentation is concerned. What separates this from the original song is the the added sound effects at the end. Just after the song ends, Pete says that there may be a bomb in the building, and he's urging people to leave the building instead of just standing in place, and looking at him. This mirrored their own concert experiences, as bomb threats came in during their tour of Slow, Deep, and Hard. To take such a dark moment in one's career, and twist it into dry humor is something no other band can ever do as good as Type-O Negative can do.

Pain: Originally named "Prelude to Agony", Pain sounds absolutely no different from it predecessor, apart from some sound effects at the beginning, and Pete Steele at the end saying "Hey, I got some good news for you morons. This is gonna be out last song!". Of all the altered songs on this album, I found this one to be the weakest of the bunch, and despite it sounding good, I haven't listened to this one that much.

Kill You Tonight: Originally named "Xero Tolerance", this is the strongest of the repeated & altered songs on this album. Before the songs starts, Pete asks for security to take a kid off the stage because he's, and I quote the mighty Pete, peeing all over the place. The lyrics sound almost the same as than in the original song, and even the instrumentation sounds close. The song concludes with glass breaking on stage, and the crowd cheering. In the words of Pete, "Listen, if you want to throw shit, at least have the balls to come to the front of the stage and do it."

Hey Pete: I got a good laugh or two when I listened to this, and out of all the songs on this album, this is one of the two songs I like the most. Basically, Hey Pete is a more morbid and violent edition of Jimi Hendrix's Hey Joe, even though the base song is pretty morbid already. Instead of a gun, Pete uses an axe to "Kill his baby", but the premise of the song stays the same. This is definitely a good song to listen to when you have a glass of scotch on the rocks in your hand.

Kill You Tonight (Reprieve): Essentially the other half of Xero Tolerance,  KYT (R) still carries the humor and fast-paced instrumentation of the second half of Xero Tolerance, along with the slowness after everything is complete. I didn't like Xero Tolerance being split in half, but somehow this has some charm to it.

Paranoid: This song was not on the original release, but instead was on the re-release two years later in 1994. Perhaps out of all the songs on The Origin of the Feces, this one is the strongest in terms of sound and feel. Essentially a slowed down version of Black Sabbath's Paranoid, Type-O Negative's take on the song sounds much more sinister than Black Sabbath's, and for some reason fits the song's name more so that the way Black Sabbath did it. There's actually a second Black Sabbath song within this one, in the form of Iron Man's main line of "Can you feel love?". Overall, this is the best song on the album.

Overall Impression & Rating
This is definitely the black sheep of Type-O Negative albums. It's clearly fun to listen you, as the sounds put into it make the whole thing sound like a real concert, but I simply can't ignore the fact that they basically recycled their first album. Even with the three original songs, this sounds just like Slow, Deep, and Hard, and while that album was good, I wished that there was something more to this one than just the same songs pretending to be live.

The Origin of the Feces gets a 3 to 4 out of 10. The pretend sound effects make the whole "live" concert sound quite believable, but it sounds too much like Slow, Deep, and Hard.

See you later this week. Until then, stay Otaku!