Actually it is basically the same notes, though the Cure's are an octave higher. It might not be the exact same key, but its close, and the pattern is the same. When I first joined the band and heard "With Rue and Fire", "Killing An Arab" was what came to mind first. I hadn't heard "Sear Me" for several years at that point and it never even occured to me about the similarity until some time later.
I'm not really getting defensive about the whole matter, it's just that we have caught alot of flak from people about that whole bit in the past. Considering that bands play riffs that are similar to other band's riffs all the time, I always thought it was silly that people gave us so much heat for it, but I think it's because some people just really wanted to find a reason to dislike us and write us off as "MDB clones". On certain other message boards, I've read where people have called us exactly that, but meanwhile, they admit to having only heard one cd of ours, or a handful of songs of ours at best. Anyone who really knows ND realises that we've changed alot over the years and that each album is somewhat different from the other, you can't really judge us or categorize us after hearing only one song, or even one cd. Thankfully people like yourself gave the rest of the music a listen, even after you initially had the "MDB homage" vibe, and realised there was much more going on than that.
I always find it pretty interesting when people try to throw bands into certain categories and label them when only hearing small portions of their music. There's so many bands that are just impossible to judge and "figure out" so to speak, from hearing only one or two songs. Can you imagine if Opeth were to be judged solely upon listening to "Harvest"? Or for that matter, the entire "Damnation" album? Bands like Katatonia, Anathema, Amorphis, Agalloch, and a band such as us, just cannot be judged and labelled based on hearing a few songs here and there, nor upon hearing only one cd from the entire catalog. Sorry if I'm ranting, but it's just always been something that's stuck out to me when reading different threads and forums and seeing people's comments and reactions regarding this matter. I just wonder how many people have potentially missed out on hearing some really killer music, because they heard one or two songs and mistakenly presumed that it was a full representation of that bands repertoire.
And, as for the ongoing Peter Steele debate lol......I think Repulsion was the name that Pete chose AFTER Carnivore had split. I believe I even have an article or two about them when they were called Repulsion, and that would have been the early 90's. It was then that they learned that the other Repulsion existed and so Pete chose Type O Negative as a new name. I'm basing most of this on memory alone, so I might be wrong.