The singer Ville Valo looks more and more like a tattooed Chris Isaak. I can state that because, appropriately enough, there's a photo of the man in the booklet of HIM's seventh studio album. Unlike the rest of the band members.

Although HIM has been Valo's show for a long time now, now it has become difficult to track the band whatsoever. (<--unknown what he means by this.)

And things have been happening musically as well. After 15 years as Depeche Mode's dirty hard rock cousin - and as a contrast to the last gloomy 'Venus Doom' - Ville Valo dives right into the influences of his childhood, the eighties. 

Super Mario Bros-synhts, big U2-reverberation, A-ha-melodies, Duran Duran-drums, The Cult-heaviness. You can even feel Billy Idol's blond hair between the dark riffs.

But everything is, of course, balanced with the band's unique gothic metal. The outcome is a varied album, which includes some of HIM's most beautiful and "hit-ish" songs so far. At the same time they're built on lyrics that don't only thresh among love's most wrecked scenarios. Valo has constantly made a big deal of everything (<-- unknown the expression he uses here) but now the biggest drama queen of metal at least has something hopeful in his eyes. I almost said happy.

The changes are hardly groundbreaking or dramatic but they still take some listenings to take in.

The most conservative fans won't take it in at all.

Best track: "Love, the Hardest Way".

Link for the review can be found, here.

Thank you to leilalalah from Live Journal for the translation.