"World Coming Down" is the fifth dark offering from Type-O Negative. Surprised? These Negative boys have been grinding out heavy tunes for more than 10 years. Although they are kings of the goth scene, the sound is a mixture of old school heavy metal, depression and a caustic need to produce music beyond the scenes.

Go-Go caught up with Type-O, recently headlining with Coal Chamber, in Denver. Johnny Kelly, the band's drummer and hot-rod owner, took a moment to set the record straight on influence, action and MTV.

Go-Go: What bands were you into before Type-O Negative came along?

Kelly: We have a wide array of influences. The age group is pretty wide ... there's six years between youngest and oldest in the band. Peter [Steele, frontman] got a lot of 60s psychadelic pop music and got into hardcore from there. Peter still played around with melodies and harmonies and gave a different twist to the hardcore of the time. I came from a very Beatles, Stones, Zepplin household. The common denominator is the Beatles and Black Sabbath.

G: That's evident with the sense of lyric and harmony with a heavy sound.

K: That's just how it got regurgitated. It may not be the most palatable, but I think as far as being a band ... ultimately we've achieved that. There's a lot of variety between records, but it still sounds like Type-O Negative. We're able to go into something that has a hardcore feel to it and go somewhere else with that.

G: What do you think of the fact that heavy metal is making a comeback in 2000?

K: As the years go on and younger kids get old, all of it gets mutated in a way, but heavy music all comes from the blues anyway. Now that other things have come up since the 60s and 70s, things like rap and ska, all of that is getting intertwined. It might not be my taste, but I'm glad somebody's trying to do something with it.

G: So you guys aren't purists?

K: Oh no, we've used stuff that's very current and trendy, but then we'll go back to the basic sound. We can have the samples and the jackhammers and stuff, but at the same time you can sound like Jim Morrison and the Doors. It's all a big bowl of mess. I remember when I was a kid and I heard Slayer and I thought, "Where does it go?" You know, how much farther could they take it. In the mid-80s Slayer and Metallica were the most extreme as you could get, to me. And then it went further. When I first heard Pantera, I thought, here's another band that just wants to sound like Slayer, but then they integrated their culture, and that whole South American tribal influx took the music one step further. That, I thought, was really cool.

G: As you grow older as a musician, how do you see Type-O Negative five years from now?

K: Probably just more wrinkles, more jaded, and walking a little bit of a slower walk.

G: Do you guys watch MTV and think, "man we're getting old."

K: I don't watch MTV anymore because they don't play music. It's just become this whole facade. It's quite boring, especially being 32 years old. Maybe if they played more videos, I'd like it. Every once in a while I'll feel old, especially when I meet fans who, man, I could father some of these children. That's kind of odd. But I was feeling like they feel when I saw Metallica in 1991, and I felt old then!

G: Given the genre you play in, the goth and industrial, how do you feel about guys like Marilyn Manson who promote heavy drugs and sexual promiscuity and satanism.

K: Man, that stuff has been going on for years. Worshipping the devil and stuff. I always took it in stride. I was never the kind of guy who hung on to every lyric my favorite artist wrote. A lot of it was my parents were always in touch. They were young ... my father took me to Kiss concerts and took me to see the Stones, and they had all those drugs lyrics and all kinds of stuff. My father wasn't a big Black Sabbath fan, but I couldn't shock my parents with it, so I guess that helped me take it all in stride. I don't see it as a rock band's responsibility to be a role model.

The best place to listen to Acoustic Junction's new CD is in your car with the windows open and the speedometer at 60 or higher. "Strange Days," the latest offering from the Boulder-born band, is definitely open road music.

Popping the CD into my car stereo and pulling out of the parking lot onto the street, I discovered that I couldn't drive fast enough to the energetic folk-pop-rock and roll strummings of the opening song "Every Heart." Acoustic Junction's music is about momentum, and the songs just make you want to move.

For the last two months movement has been the last thing on my mind. I've been crushed under the weight of winter, cowering in my apartment and praying that my irritable space heater will make it through one more night without catching on fire.

But with these first days of spring, all I've wanted to do is get outside and drive. Coasting down I-25 and flipping through the monotonous offerings of commercial radio stations, I've longed for something to compliment the change in weather. When I heard "Strange Days," I knew I'd found what I'd been looking for -- the perfect soundtrack for spring.

Don't get me wrong. Acoustic Junction isn't a one-mood band. They aren't all sunshine and lollipops. From the up-beat "Every Heart," the band deftly switches gears to "Melt," a stream of consciousness song about a broken-hearted guy who has a dream about taking a bullet, killing a shark, and winning back the love of his ex-girlfriend. The title track, "Strange Days," uses the somewhat cliched theme of "flying away" and spins out a rhythm and melody that made me press down so hard on the gas, I'm surprised I didn't get a ticket.

These are sensitive boys (I've heard rumors of such creatures), and they often wear their hearts on their sleeves with such songs as "Goodbye World" and "Long Way ‘Til Tomorrow." With earnest crooning and simple guitar-heavy arrangements, Acoustic Junction tells many a tale of love gone wrong. I'll admit that after a while this reoccurring message of heart-break started to get me down. Relationships can suck. Everybody knows that. Tell me something new.

The weakest track actually comes when famed musician Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young) contributes his vocals to "Dancin' For You." Here the music and lyrics become sentimental. The melody is so sweet, my teeth started to itch.

Despite the sometimes overly emotional lyrics, Acoustic Junction fuses folk and rock influences into an album that bounces, sways, and grooves. As the nights get shorter, and the days grow longer, I'm getting ready to chuck my space heater in the dumpster and spend more time outside. On my way out the door, I'll make sure to grab "Strange Days" for the road trips ahead. B+

I'm not a peeping tom on purpose, but sometimes I can't help it; my neighbors live only four feet away from me. The windows in my apartment face the alley, so even though I reside right downtown next to the capitol and a wealth of other historical sites, the vista I experience is a full-frontal view into the living rooms of half a dozen strangers. My neighbors and I have an open relationship. I watch them, and they watch me. But we don't know each other, and we've never actually met.

So it's 4 AM Sunday morning (yes, I'm an insomniac) when I put Chupacabra's CD in the stereo, and the sound of their salsa, samba, afro pop, acid jazz music explodes from the speakers. I run to close the windows. I don't want to wake up the whole neighborhood.

Now it's 4:01 AM and I'm dancing around the kitchen to syncopated rhythms of Chupacabra's funky "Abuela." I feel like I've been transported to some beach night-club that sits on the border between Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, and Chupacabra's native Boulder. Yes, there is such a place, and this ensemble band proves it. I continue to whirl around the apartment, and I wonder if there's anyone watching me.

Chupacabra is made up of a myriad of musicians (Sunny Michelson with vocals and precussion, Jason Virunurm on guitar, Brian Juan on keyboards, Jason McDaniel on bass, Oheryl Etu on marimba, Anthony Salvo on soprano sax and violin, Michael McKenzie on congas and percussion, Dan Porras on drums and percussion). More than anything, this band sounds like a bunch of friends getting together and having a lot of fun. There is a give and take between musicians, a sort of dialogue like that of a large family gathered around campfire slinging hotdogs and marshmallows at each other.

Ultimately, however, this jam band loses some of its impact in the translation between live music and recorded CD. Even though I've never seen Chupacabra in person, I get the sense that the energy created in the moment of creation isn't coming across on my stereo. The melody is muted. The beatings of the drums are dulled. The CD only hints at the power of this band's music, and I find myself wishing I could be at a concert swaying in the midst of a hot, sweaty crowd and not bouncing up and down all alone in my kitchen.

As I continue to shake my hips, I start to feel a little ridiculous and pretty damn lonely. I want to open my windows back up and begin tossing drums and guitars at my neighbors. I want to be in a jam band too. "Wake up," I whisper quietly to myself. Suddenly it's hard not to start singing my own song across the ally. "Wake up, kids!" I want to say. "It's time we all met each other and started a band!" C+

If you ask me, it has been a little while since I have thrown a CD in and actually been moved to the point of saying, "Fucking A!" With the radio waves full of either corporate pop icons or Korn and everyone trying to sound like Korn, The Step Kings come on in and smoke the competition. True rock and roll was meant to be dished up hot, and with their release "Let's Get It On," they serve up more than a platefull.

Three guys, Bob McLynn on vocals and bass. Fren, throwing vocals and guitar around and Mike Watt hammering the skins with surgical precision, formed two years ago. Relentless touring, releasing their own records and a DIY philosophy has destiny handing them a one-way ticket to the rock and roll motherland. I have a strong feeling that The Step Kings have fought the good fight to get where they are. Playing legendary haunts like CBGB's as well as opening for The Dickies, Kid Rock, and Everlast. What seems like such an original sound has its definite influential undertones. Flashbacks of Faith No More, Soundgarden and the Red Hot Chili Peppers keep coming to mind. Yet these cats have been able to throw all of the best of the aforementioned bands together little by little and master the sound that they were all trying to achieve. You can also tell that the touring and playing live has paid The Step King heavy dividends. Their sound is very tight and polished without sounding like studio wizardry.

I hate to say it, but the Step Kings make the likes of Korn and Limp Bizkit sound like nursery rhymers thinking of new songs to jump rope to. With the soulful call-and-response vocals between Fern's melodic left hook and McLynn's in-your-face uppercut of a wail, a lot of attitude cuts to the bone with almost every song. Twelve tracks that seem to run together so well that you are kind of shocked when it is over. The first track, "Vibe," steps into the ring swinging. Not only hardcore from the get-go, but then it delivers a knock-out melody from a perfect left-right combination, with other tracks like "Right is Wrong," "Recognition," my personal favorite "Imbalance," and, no shit, a cover of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall." Trust me on this one too -- it is not your older brother's Pink Floyd. If you can stand the few minutes of silence, the hidden track is worth drinking a beer, also.

Let's face it: we have all spent good money on a CD only to get it home and find out it sounds like either someone has run it through a water bong or the record company has farmed out all the musicians. Production has its merits too, right? Well fear not, "Let's Get It On" won't let you down. Produced by legendary Machine, who has produced the likes of White Zombie, Pitchshifter and Coal Chamber, it's not only produced to bear out the original sound of these guys but, most importantly, it is not overproduced. You can be reasonably sure that if you were to see these guys live, there would be no surprises like, "where's the DJ scratching?" or, "I thought these guys traveled with a choir." This is pure rock at its finest. This has a street feel, a people feel. While taking an apolitical approach to their music, you can feel that these guys really are trying to get their message across to you. Party with us ... and we'll party with you.

I always like to juice my friends up with good tunes, and you can bet the bank that I will be passing this around like a mail-order prom date. A+