How does a Love Metal band that has damnation by the goddess of love over and done with sound like? In HIM’s case you could say: relieved. The heaviness of Venus Doom is history. Instead VV & Co ... [I don’t know how to translate that. It means that they set fire to the end of that thing ... oh gosh now it gets complicated: you know that piece of wire or threat – I don’t even know what it’s called in German lol – on dynamite you have to light to fire the dynamite? Well that’s what they set on fire – I guess this just didn’t make any sense at all Let’s just say they] ... start a fireworks of hits with the poppy “In Venere Veritas” which will probably make the eyes of all those water who have lately missed some catchiness. Songs like “Scared to Death” (on closer examination only half as dark as the title suggests) are textbook-like radio-songs, the first single “Heart Killer” takes the same line. HIM show their whole talent as a seductive melodious-melancholy rockband and you may well call the album commercial, as long as that doesn’t mean any more than the prediction of a success well beyond the limits of a certain audience. “Screamworks” isn’t commercial in the sense of plastic-music. The arrangements are too inventive/imaginative for that. 80s-games-sounds [I have no idea what ‘pluckern’ is in German lol] ripple in “In the Arms of Rain” before killer-vocal-hooks take over. “Ode to Solitude” is very catchy with a most effective driving/drifty/impellent riff and presents the whole width/broadness of V’s singing from crooning to screaming (Screamworks!) and head-voice. The frontman presents himself as manifold as never before. And the songs are designed multisided. Hard-Rock leadguitars whine in “Shatter me with Hope”, breakbeat rhythms open the powerful “Like St. Valentine” before “Smother a Heart” sets the surprisingly electronic last point. “Screamworks” covers the span between poppiness and musical substance [meaning it has musical depth], softness and the exact minimum of rubbing [can you say that? Lol didn’t find anything else] which makes sure that the melodies not only go down smoothly but also stick in mind. Luckily VV is in the right condition to cope with that brilliantly. Quod erat demonstrandum. 

Special thank you to shining_rose from Live Journal for translating & summarising  the article.