your world is coming to its end
but you don't have to be afraid

i'm here for you
save your happiness for tomorrow
today we'll drown in your tears
a drop of your blood tastes like wine

today come closer my dear
it is just the beginning of the end

yes, i'm here for you
your blood tastes like life
let it rain

                                                      "the beginning of the end"
                                                             HIM/ville valo 1998


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                   HIM - the Backstreet Boys of gothic rock?
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Since the goth oriented rockers from HIM formed that big hype around themselves,
since they, or  better their frontman Ville Valo, impressed so many people, esp,
young girlies, it is time to ask, if they deserve the hype, or if they're really
only  a band  that surfing  on the  goth wave  while its  creates  a  quite mass
compatible sound to earn as much money as possible... Sure, many people know HIM
because of their latest singles  that are  played by  every radio station around
the globe, they know them through the female looking singer with its soft voice,
they know them through the clichee  overloaded contents  of their songs, through
the hype in the teenie magazines... But do they know all?

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                       Greatest Lovesongs Vol.666

released by Supersonic Records, 1998
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The debut album by HIM didn't matched it in some way to affect a bigger comunity
of listeners. In fact it was released with a quite clever advertizement campaign
but in  the end  it failed  somehow... The  reasons are quite clear... it is far
from  being that  pop oriented like  the follow ups, but  does it have to be bad
than? Nope, even if they're already showing up their way with this release, they
were able to interest a quite different kind of listeners to it...

the tracklist

o1 - Your Sweet Six Six Six
o2 - Whicked Game
o3 - The Heartless
o4 - Our Diabolikal Rapture
o5 - It's All Tears (Drown In This Love)
o6 - When Love And Death Embrace
o7 - The Beginning Of The End
o8 - (Don't Fear) The Reaper
o9 - For You
1o - hidden track on track number 66

Right the first track shows what I mean, the music  sounds rough, gives even the
impression to be recorded in a garage or cellar in half drunken way :) Ville and
his band are rocking really stunning, far away from any grease as he's known for
today...

The second one is a cover version of a Chris Isaack song, maybe the one or other
remembers this one. I have to admit that this isn't a real rocking cover and the
cover version  of Billy Idols "Rebel Yell" that  appeared later on the "Join Me"
single, showes that they're able to create real cool coversongs...

3rd one is a quite soft song, real guitar  pop somehow, but a hard  break in the
song brings you  back into reality and this song out of the insignificance, back
for good...

The "Diabolikal Rapture" is a very impressive song, with damn  aggressive synth/
guitar parts, would be a damn good one if some singers passages wouldn't be that
weak... arg... also "It's all tears" knows to bound on long  passages, this song
has real good drive, only  the sample  storm in the  fourth quarter seem to be a
bit displaced.

And after all it's time to bring one of the  rocking hymns  HIM are so wellknown
for, track number 6 is a real impressive song, with the right ballad feeling but
surely to hard  for the lovers of their later soft stuff. Its a fairly long song
and one of the absolute highlights on this album...

With  "The Beginning Of The End" they're  connecting  right  back  to  "It's All
Tears", with  damn aggressive  noises and  in parts  distorted/stretched vocals,
this track  leaves nearly any goth orientation behind and transforms into a real
dark metal object...

Track number 9 brings another cover song, and female voices... but far away from
being the usual growl/female voice  variant, that was  rode to death in the goth
rock area. A very driving  song, still damn metal  oriented but with  nice piano
passages the rough feeling that is spread through the whole album...

"For You" seems  to be  some kind  of afterburner  for the reaper song, since it
uses a similar melody in the intro... a good one as well...

The hidden  track is  a quite strange thing, it is placed on place 66 and starts
with minute 6 of the track to give some dirty noises with a little melody... but
if you don't listened  to it, you  haven't  lost something... it's just an short
instrumental track.

So what?  "Greatest Lovesongs" hasn't  much to  do with  the greasy  and clichee
dripping follow  up "Razorblade Romance". It's a rude rocking album that doesn't
cares  about special  styles but  is still able  to leave  some quite depressing
moments and thoughts. The lyrics aren't that poster-a-like, this is very good...
If you  like goth-touched metal music  but weren't  interested in HIM because of
the hype around  them, just give  this one an ear, maybe you'll be very positive
surprised?

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                              Razorblade Romance

released by Supersonic Records, 2ooo
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This is the  album that  has build up the  hype around  HIM... apart  from their
debut  album, they're playing  around with typical gothic cliches in masses here
and as it seems, it has  made this album  that successfull. Even if the contents
of the  songs are  stepping kneedeep  in the usual cliches of death and love and
stuff, esp. the not so goth oriented youth was taken by storm by their songs...
The youth magazines were used as battlefield, showing  an always lovely looking,
hopeless  dreamer... and all this has worked perfectly, even if many people from
the darker  music scene  have turned away from this moneymaking missuse of their
ideals, ok, so let's take a closer look onto the album now!

the tracklist...

o1 - I Love You (prelude to tragedy)
o2 - Poison Girl
o3 - Join Me In Death
o4 - Right Here In My Arms
o5 - Gone With The Sin
o6 - Razorblade Kiss
o7 - Bury Me Deep Inside Your Heart
o8 - Heaven Tonight
o9 - Death Is In Love With Us
1o - Resurrection
11 - One Last Time

With the  first track the  album is breaking up a rocking storm from the fences,
fast and furious, that's goth'n'roll... also the refrains are hold in surprising
deep voices  unlike the most  other HIM songs, a very good one, maybe one of the
best songs on the whole album!

The 4 next songs are the ones that brought HIM the most fame, esp. "Join Me" was
played  to death in  the radio and  it was some  kind of strange seeing "normal"
teenagers  dancing to  this song in the  usual proll discos... ehe... join me in
death, yeah :)
Anyway, with  those 4 songs, that  were ofcourse not all that successfull in the
same way, HIM matched  it to run down  a real propaganda machinery, there was no
magazine that didn't contained anything about the new star on the goth sky...
Even if HIM  can't be  seen so  much as  goth band  at all, they're just playing
around very much  with all the things that are stucking them into that corner...
and they're using all that in a quite clever way... esp. since goth is some kind
of "hip" and "trendy" nowadays.
While "Poison Girl" is a  quite stunning  rock'n'roll thing, esp. "Gone With The
Sin" is drowning in cliches, reminding in  the intro  even a bit  to the genious
song "Christian Woman" by  Typ-O-Negative... but  Ville Valo  looks  just like a
little fucked up dwarf against the idol of all doom goth rockers... yeah, Peter!
Turn your eyes into white :)

Suddenly  with the  6th song the  grease bread  is eaten  up and  rock'n'roll is
taking over the leadership again and suddenly with the 7th song a real dark hymn
is coming up, letting Ville's voice fighting against rough guitar/drum parts and
I think  this song is a lighting point on the whole album, even if Ville's style
of singing is  scratching hard on the grease corner again... but after all, this
song is able to produce the nice goose skin on the back...

Track 8 is hard  on the frontier  to some rocking pop song and esp. the start of
the corrus is damn ugly and reminds me hard to the Bee Gees or something, arf!
Luckily with the  next track  the fast rocking  beast is leaving its cage again,
going strong forward like a steam machine, supporting headbangers quite well.

"Resurrection" is trying  to keep up the  hype of a goth hymn machine, but fails
since Ville surely is going  one step too far  while using his voice, arf... gay
alarm! Dunno if he's  trying here  to unite growl/heavenly  voice sets into one,
his own voice, but  it's a bit too much... sorry. The song itself isn't bad, but
gives again a sign for  the fact that the gothic scene is splitted in mind about
the HIM releases...

After all, the  last song  is a slow  rock thing again... letting  run the album
slowly out...

So what? Surely, "Razorblade Romance" is  a quite nice  goth rock album, feeding
the hype around  HIM in a very  heavy way. Real  dark minded  freaks surely will
think twice before buying  it, it has a few  real stunning  pearls on it but I'm
not sure if  those have enough  power to impress  the lovers of  dark music that
much, too bad that the real cool songs aren't available as singles...

At last the complete  discography, that once more is showing up the commerce the
band is running, to release a "Singles Collection" that  fast in those few years
seems to show up some kind of bankrupt of creativity...

discography

1998 - Wicked Game (single)
1998 - Greatest Lovesongs Vol.666 (album)
1999 - When Love And Death Embrace (single)
1999 - Join Me (single)
2ooo - Razorblade Romance (album)
2ooo - Right Here In My Arms (single)
2ooo - Poison Girl (single)
2ooo - Gone With The Sin (single)
2oo1 - Pretending (single)
2oo2 - Deep Shadows And Brillant Highlights (album - limited digipack edition)
2oo2 - In Joy And Sorrow (single)
2oo2 - Deep Shadows And Brillant Highlights (album - xmas edition)
2oo2 - Heartache Every Moment/Close To The Flame (double single)
2oo2 - Him Box - Singles Collection (including the unreleased "It's All Tears")

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