It’s been awhile since we last heard from the Brooklyn collective known as TYPE O NEGATIVE, but with Dead Again, the band’s first album in four years, “The Drab Four” are back with ten tales of woe, self-loathing and strife. Delivered with tongue planted firmly in cavity infested cheek, the band has taken a much more uptempo approach this time around with the title track, “Halloween in Heaven” and “Some Stupid Tomorrow” all exhibiting almost punk-like tendencies laced with sections of SABBATH-inspired sludge. As a whole, Dead Again also offers up the band’s most varied work to date. The appropriately-titled “Profit of Doom” and “These Three Things” each offer plenty of doom and gloom, easily passing the eleven minute mark on both with dense layers of dirge-driven riffage. “She Burned Me Down” on the other hand, offers catchy hook-laden melodies while an “Ode to Locksmiths” could have easily been titled an “Ode to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” as the bluesy, groove-infested jam almost serves as an homage to the metal classic. BEATLES thievery rears its ugly head however with the gushy, bland, and sluggish “September Sun,” but that’s a minor complaint as Dead Again is perhaps TYPE O NEGATIVE’s most consistent and cohesive work to date. Successfully combining doom, psychedelia, ethereal goth, punk, pop, and metal in to one seamless blend you can call your own is no small feat, but it’s something the band has been doing for well over a decade and better than anyone else. So before you die, get Dead Again. (SPV Records)