Dead End 2003

20th anniversary reissue of Type O Negative's 6th album "Life Is Killing Me". A relentless work from the kings of New York Gothic Metal.
In the past, Type O Negative dared the listener to sit through aural jokes to weed out the four or five cuts of ghoulish greatness only these Brooklyn boys could devise. At this point, slab number six, everyone knows what to expect from the drab four, and they now know how to deliver it consistently. Ultimately, Life Is Killing Me breaks no new ground, but engages throughout, always touching on the Type O oeuvre. "I Don't Wanna Be Me" easily qualifies as one of the band's best singles…

It only seems like there has been an endless stream of Grateful Dead compilations. In reality, there has only been a handful, and the most notable of those were released while the band was still an active recording and touring unit in the '70s – and before they had belated chart success in the late '80s, 20 years after their debut album. So, Warner/Rhino's 2003 collection The Very Best of Grateful Dead marks the first attempt to do a thorough single-disc overview of the group's career, encompassing not just their classic Warner albums but also the records they cut for their own Grateful Dead/UA and Arista.

On November 11, 2003, Diamanda Galás released two albums, ending a five-year recording hiatus with a bang. Both are solo live recordings and present two very different sides of her. La Serpenta Canta showcased her song-based material (mostly blues). Defixiones: Will and Testament, Orders From the Dead is more typical of her operatic works of the 1990s.

If ever a metal band deserved the box set treatment, it's Slayer. Love them or hate them, their accomplishments in the thrash metal subgenre is pretty much unequaled. For over 20 years, Slayer have remained doggedly and stubbornly persistent in their approach to playing the heaviest, loudest, and darkest metal in America…

Over the course of a dozen solo albums and two decades, the former Birthday Party frontman and his trusty Bad Seeds have been on an endless death march through a landscape of brooding depression, tragic obsession and black-hearted murder balladry. Nocturama, as you might expect, finds them no closer to the light. Minimally decorated, languidly paced and darkly textured, most of these 10 cuts once again combine Cave’s literary narratives and croaking baritone to maximum effect, weaving mesmerizing tales of death, sin and salvation, whose bleak messages are leavened only by the sheer beauty of their performance and artistry. Every once in a while, just to startle us, Cave breaks the spell by rocking out - the hard-hitting Dead Man In My Bed lurches to a stumbling 15/8 beat, and Babe, I’m On Fire is an angular, 15-minute epic of fixation…