Gothfather Peter Steele returns with a new batch of familiar-sounding tracks that satisfy the ache metal fans have long felt for a new Type O Negative record. While Steele and Co. don't reinvent the genre here, the opening breakneck rocker "Dead Again," its Black Sabbath-on-Diamond Head successor "Tripping a Blind Man," and the epically epic "The Profits of Doom" create the metallic trinity of 2007's first quarter. Elsewhere, Steele gives us another gothic, Alice Cooper-esque ballad ("September Sun"), tears up our speakers with a little bit of humor ("Halloween in Heaven"), and comes around once more to slam down the almighty doom hammer ("She Burned Me Down"). Yes, the production's a little murkier than it probably has to be and no there's nothing that strikes as an immediate classic, but as Type O records go, Dead Again is admirable for its strong convictions and solidity. -- Jedd Beaudoin
