HIM - "Dark Light" (Sire/Warner Bros.)

This was bound to happen. HIM have produced an album that sounds pretty much exactly like everything they’ve released since their massive hit album Razorblade Romance (2000), which was, I admit, faultless. Razorblade Romance was my first HIM album, which I got when it came out. Since then, I’ve been eagerly awaiting everything the band releases, and have never been let down. Until now. Sort of…

This is the first HIM album where I’ve found myself skipping songs. Well, only one song, really: “Dark Light”. It’s just awful! Cloying, limp, poorly written, boring drivel. In my opinion, they should have left this off the album, and replaced it with the B-Side from the first single (“Wings Of A Butterfly”), “Poison Heart” (a Ramones cover).

On a completely different note, and while speaking of “Wings Of A Butterfly”; how amazing is this guitar riff? In fact, the whole song is certainly one of the best songs the band has ever written, not to mention the most ear-catching and likely to have you humming all day long. Love them or hate them (and isn’t that a long-dead debate in all the magazines…), you can’t deny that Ville Valo and chums certainly know how to write dark pop songs. “Killing Loneliness” fits into this category, too.

Apart from this stand out track, and the poorer one, the rest of the album is pretty much HIM-by-numbers, and is therefore only ‘okay’. Even then, they’ve made the album sound a lot weaker, toning down much of the bombast in favour of something they probably thought would sound like heartfelt angst… While “Under The Rose” and “Behind The Crimson Door” sound far too like a couple of other songs from previous albums.

Ordinarily, the lack of progression wouldn’t have been a problem, but the band are resting too much on their laurels and perhaps it’s time to up the ante! I don’t think a change in direction is a good idea (indeed, it would probably destroy their careers), but I think they’ll need to start doing something new to keep interests high, and keep the fans coming back for more.

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