Type O Negative — Slow Deep And Hard Remaster: Brooklyn's Bleakest Debut

Brooklyn's Bleakest Debut — the Vault Deep Dive on Type O Negative — Slow Deep And Hard Remaster (1991).

The Story

In 1991 Roadrunner released the debut of a band unlike anything else on the label: four Brooklyn men led by a towering bassist with a baritone like wet asphalt, playing songs that were too slow for thrash, too vicious for goth, and too funny for either. Slow, Deep and Hard is Type O Negative arriving fully formed and completely raw — the bile of Peter Steele's previous band still in its throat, but the crawling doom, the gallows humor, and the green-and-black aesthetic already locking into place. Nobody heard it coming, and nothing that followed it sounded quite the same.

The Sound

The record lurches between crushing doom riffs, hardcore eruptions, funeral-organ drones and moments of deadpan silence — songs stretched far past radio length, titled like confessions and played like breakdowns. Steele's voice anchors everything, sliding from a whisper to that impossible low register. It's uglier and more abrasive than the gothic velvet of the later albums; this is the band at its most punishing, before the melody rose fully to the surface. For fans who came in through October Rust, hearing this one first is a genuine shock.

The Sessions

Steele wrote the material in the shadow of his earlier crossover band, carrying its aggression into something slower and stranger, with Josh Silver's keyboards already shaping the atmosphere that would define the band for the rest of its run. The album had actually circulated a year earlier in a different form — same songs, different title, a different band name on the sleeve — before Roadrunner gave it its proper 1991 release. That earlier incarnation became one of the great trivia answers in all of metal.

The Legacy

Slow, Deep and Hard became the cult cornerstone of one of metal's most beloved catalogs — the uncompromising debut that fans measure the rest against. Steele's death in 2010 turned every Type O pressing into a collector's item, and the debut's original and remastered editions have both climbed steadily since. The 2009 remaster finally gave it the archival respect it never got the first time around: restored audio, revised artwork, and expanded liner notes telling the band's own version of the story.

Why This Copy

This is the 2009 remastered edition with the slipcase, carrying a bonus track on top of the restored audio and the expanded liner notes. It's the definitive CD presentation of the debut — and it's out of print itself now, with clean slipcase copies getting harder to source every year. Disc, booklet and case on ours are clean throughout.

What the pressing tells us

The part most listings skip. This is how we grade and how you can tell copies apart:

• 2009 remastered edition with slipcase — Roadrunner
• Bonus track added to the restored audio
• Revised artwork and expanded liner notes
• Out of print — disc, booklet and case clean

Session file

• Released June 11, 1991 on Roadrunner — the band's debut
• Peter Steele arrived from the crossover band Carnivore, carrying its aggression into slower, stranger shapes
• Josh Silver's keyboards already shape the atmosphere that would define the band
• The album circulated a year earlier in a different form — different title, different band name
• Remastered in 2009 with revised artwork, expanded liner notes and a bonus track

Who played on it

• Peter Steele — Vocals / Bass
• Kenny Hickey — Guitar
• Josh Silver — Keyboards

Vault Trivia

1. Before its 1991 release, the album circulated under what title?

1. The Origin of the Feces
2. None More Negative
3. Bloody Kisses
4. Negative Creep

Reveal the answer

None More Negative — None More Negative — issued in 1990, a year before Roadrunner's proper release.

2. And under which band name did that earlier version appear?

1. Fallout
2. Carnivore
3. Repulsion
4. Subzero

Reveal the answer

Repulsion — Repulsion — the name the band briefly used before becoming Type O Negative.

3. That earlier title is widely read as a nod to which film?

1. The Crow
2. This Is Spinal Tap
3. Hellraiser
4. The Exorcist

Reveal the answer

This Is Spinal Tap — This Is Spinal Tap — 'it's like, how much more black could this be?'

4. The 2009 remaster's bonus track is a version of which song?

1. Black No. 1
2. Christian Woman
3. Hey Pete
4. Everyone I Love Is Dead

Reveal the answer

Hey Pete — Hey Pete — the 'Pete's Ego Trip' version, first heard on The Least Worst Of.

5. The band's infamous follow-up album was titled what?

1. World Coming Down
2. October Rust
3. Bloody Kisses
4. The Origin of the Feces

Reveal the answer

The Origin of the Feces — The Origin of the Feces — 1992's fake live album, every bit as confrontational as the debut.

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