No passado dia 14 de Abril, faleceu o vocalista e baixista dos Type O Negative.
Se para a grande maioria, Steele não seria mais do que um ilustre desconhecido, para muitos (incluindo eu) foi uma das grandes figuras do heavy metal, uma voz inconfundível e um compositor suis generis.
Temas como Black Nr.1, Christian Woman, Everything Dies, Life is Killing Me destacam-se de uma discografia que vai de 1991 a 2007. De resto é interessante ler um artigo que encontrei na Atlantic, com o apto título "Why Peter Steel Mattered":
If you are like so many music fans, you probably haven't heard of Peter Steele. But you've probably made fun of him. He was a mess of long hair, muscle, and baritone. He had tattoos coloring his shoulders and covered most of his 6'7" frame in black denim or cloth. His band was named after a blood type and he wrote mostly about death and destruction.
(...)
Steele's lyrics had similarly teenage feeling, as he sang mostly of one-sided heartbreak, depression, and sex. While Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor was referencing Nietzsche on The Downward Spiral , Steele's philosophical experience involved writing songs about the weight of the world titled "Gravitational Constant: G = 6.67 x 10-8 cm-3 gm-1 sec-2" and consequently singing, "suicide is self-expression." As Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan relayed experiences of sexual abuse and childhood pain, Steele wrote a song about his breakup entitled "Unsuccessfully Coping with the Natural Beauty of Infidelity" (the song featured Steele screaming expletives toward his ex). Metallica wrote songs based on Hemmingway books, Type O Negative did interstitial tracks of tribal chanting and a woman screaming called "Fay Wray Come Out and Play."
(...)
In metal terms, Steele was perfect for his time. Even Beavis and Butthead famously compared the video for "Black No. 1" to "a cross between Danzig and Megadeth," The band's funereal doom riffs were more the brainchild of early Tony Iommi than most bands before and after. Steele's compositions were extensive, often reaching beyond eight minutes and featuring slow, dirge-like time changes. By eschewing the trash tendencies of his peers, Type O Negative became a bridge from Sabbath to modern metal bands like Opeth and Sunn O))). Biohazard's Evan Seinfeld this week called Steele "my single biggest musical influence" and Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt called Steele "funny, intense, intimidating and overall, a good guy." Neither Steele nor Type O Negative ever had the critical acclaim of Opeth, or the similarly funereal Isis--whose riffs and minimalism echo Steele often--because the band's records were placed in a time of thrash, punk and nu metal domination. But Steele was metal. He battled depression and drug addiction, even being institutionalized in both prison and a psychiatric ward at times in his life. He spoke to his teenage male fan base, and he spoke of their heartbreak. He seemed to live out their fantasies, appearing on the Jerry Springer Show on a segment about groupies. He shared their sense of humor, making poop and sex jokes until the end. If you weren't a teenage metaller in the mid 1990s, you probably didn't know Peter Steele. But he will be missed. He was the teenage male's fantasy, a giant rebel who created worlds and perpetually flipped his finger to the nebulous "authority."
De resto, uma das músicas do último álbum faz todo o sentido nest altura: