Remember when Billy's chocolate bar fell into Sally's peanut butter? Get you're mind out of the gutter, it's an old Reese's commercial. H.I.M.'s combination of glam and goth are a similar sweet treat. H.I.M. may brandish their music as "love metal," but their not talking about healthy relationships. "Your Sweet Six Six Six" is about an attraction with the spawn of Satan that our singer cannot turn away from. Ville's vocals are seductive and somewhat creepy.

The bass line driven hook of "Poison Girl" delves into the seductive powers of a woman's kiss. If you can't see where these relationships are going yet, you will on "Join Me In Death." Ville transforms into a sinister monster vocally, as the group adds eerie piano to their dark rhythms. My favorite track is a pumped up reworking of the Chris Isaac classic "Wicked Game." You don't know the song? I'll bet you remember the black and white video with the half naked brunette running down the beach. This song about a painful love fits the group's style to a tee. This time around it's darker and heavier.

"Razorblade Kiss" has a rock radio feel to it. It's loaded with razor sharp riffs, a melodic chorus, and a silvery solo section. "Death is in Love With Us" has a more breakneck rhythm to it and we find Ville a little more cocksure in his vocal delivery. How does one end a tortured relationship? "Sigillum Diaboli" answers that question. This track finds the group mixing it up with a little punk rock flow. If you can call it a love ballad, "One Last Time" is an acoustic track with distant, melancholy vocals, which propositions a final affair before these lovers go their separate ways.

Anything Bad?

Could they print the lyrics any smaller?!

Bottom Line

H.I.M.'s combination of deep, seductive, melodic vocals and dark gothic rhythms are a unique twist in the rock genre. Their guitar tone is simply awesome. It's the main reason I liked this CD so much. I can forgive Ville for his brief falsettos. They seem to fit the sinister, tortured love theme he's creating.


Ville Valo...the Poet   June 6, 2004
 48 out of 68 found this review helpful

I didn't discover HIM threw Bam Mangera like most people in the USA have. As a matter of fact, I don't even like Bam much. Makes me sick that there are people walking around with Heartagrams tattooed on them without really knowing the meaning behind the heartagram.

Over the last decade, many have noticed how Goth music seemed to go from a sad, yet bittersweet melancholy into some clown licking the inner posterior of hermaphrodites, tap-dancing on Hitler moustaches, and sticking their (...) into mashed potatoes in order to "liberate people from the lies they've been told" (kudos to Deadsun for the brilliant Marilyn Manson parodies) as their fans consider themselves tr00 individuals for dressing up in black and hating life because their hero told them to. For those tired of the "I'm more goth than you because I hate my grandparents as well as my parents" crowd, you might want to give HIM's 'Razorblade Romance' album a try.

Though perfectly a beautiful, heart-wrenching tragedy of early Goth, HIM draws more from traditional Metal rather than the Punk influences of early Goth music. The result is a perfectly produced album where drums keep excellent beat, piano is used on more slower-tempo songs, guitar solos are inserted only where necessary so as to mark either the climax or just before the climax on more heart-pounding songs, and frontman Ville Valo's lush vocals with excellent articulation. Not to mention, Ville is quite the poet.

The album starts hard with "Your Sweet Six Six Six" that calms down briefly for the verse lines, yet gets very doomy with the chorus. Though the title and chorus might make it seem sinister, it's more like both a celebration and cry against that damnable masochistic love that one can't help but feel for an abusive, manipulative fiend.

"Poison Girl" is a confession of a blind, self-destructive kind of lust disguised as tragic love. Perfect backing vocals to aid the chorus warns of just how powerful love can be at times, but more lustful than loving.

"Join Me In Death" is quite simply the theme song to Romeo and Juliet. The piano provides a great line of tones that make the chorus seem more hopeful than tragic.

"Right Here In My Arms" is a celebration of togetherness and unity even in the midst of individual conflicts and tragedies with a rough, static-like guitar solo, who's chorus provides a danceable beat even.

"Bury Me Deep Inside Your Heart" is a song of mourning for a soon-to-be departed loved one. Metallic, echoing piano lines provide an almost tear-stained backdrop. Remember, our loved ones aren't dead so long as we keep them in our heart.

HIM's cover of the Chris Isaak classic song, "Wicked Game" reverberates along walls, creates echoes, and layers of sounds of charging guitar riffs, Valo's soprano (or is it tenor?) that would do Chris Isaak proud, pounding drums, backing vocals demanding "This world is only going to break your heart", and two, not one, but two soaring guitar solos at different points, interweaving through everything else. I would say that this cover ranks right up there with the all-time classic covers including Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower", Soft Cell's "Tainted Love", and most recently, Johnny Cash's "Hurt" and Gary Jules' "Mad World".

"I Love You (Prelude to Trajedy)" is just what it implies. Starting off as a whisper, it explodes into a stampeding letter of the pains of further increasingly unrequited love. The backing vocals are at their loudest and doomiest here.

"Gone With The Sin" is a slower-paced, lush, acoustic track that's actually rather disturbing and borders on necrophilia almost. Or it could just be a final "I love you so much" before a lover dies and hoping that they rest in peace. A short solo appears here that gives the song a slight techno feel, but doesn't at all feel out of place.

"Razorblade Kiss" perfectly captures the guilty pleasures that love can lead us to, reminding us that love has no boundaries. A guitar solo leads up to a sudden repose for the confession of deep, passionate love before going back towards the metallic highway, as it ends with a long, consistent growl almost.

"Resurrection" is almost the summary of a fantasy tale about a man bringing a woman back from death with the power of his love. A lifting, moving tale/song of the kind of love that not even death can tame. This song leads without stopping into...

"Death Is In Love With Us". A power-packed punch and run away from the clutches of the Reaper's greed itself for the pure love existing between two souls. This song never relents in its struggle to warn of and escape from that damn Reaper. Full-on ROCK!!!

"Heaven Tonight" brings it down with heavenly backing vocals, but still a hard edge in the instrumentals. It's heavy, yet romantic. Not misery-invoking, doomy, or tragic. Just romantic. And HEAVY!

"Sigillum Diaboli" is harder and angrier with some chugging riffs behind razor-wired ones. A yell against abusive treatment that bespokes having been wronged immensely.

The final track, "One Last Time" is just a heavenly tribute to Love itself. No misery, no anger, no fear, no abuse, no regrets, just love itself and the affirmation of it before we're gone.

Love is the most universal thing there is and as a result is the hardest thing to write about without being cheesy. HIM have brilliantly and profoundly created a masterpiece fusing Goth and Metal with deeply introspective observations covering misery, hope, rage, forgiveness, and passion as they all take place as different facets of this thing we call love, so more complex than many a teen pop star makes it out to be.

HIM's 'Razorblade Romance' is a great Valentine's Day addition also. I'm sure your sweetheart will love it!


Let's try this...   June 26, 2006
 25 out of 49 found this review helpful

If you think H.I.M. are a bunch of MTV goth posers and real goth music is Christian Death, Paradise Lost, Type O Negative, My Dying Bride, or Candlemass click "yes".

If you think that H.I.M. are "da freekin bestest gawth band eva!!!!!" along with Evanescence and My Chemical Romance and those awesome bands are posers click "no".


Decadent... like rock used to be   August 2, 2004
 14 out of 18 found this review helpful

It is always something when a band works, especially where its band members have diffrent music taste can actually combine and create something unique.

The "goths" want dark, vampire-esotera and they want it now. The "metalheads" want screeching vocals and mechanistic, precision drumming and now. And the "glam rockers" want thier gutter elegance idols and trashy glamour now. The rest of us without the pretentious kiddy lable can do all of that and put each scene in a blender and be happy.

This all afforded HIM a great opportunity to smash some walls, unfortunately to the dismay of too many scenesters that cannot see beyond thier noses and evolve thier taste.

Then you end up in reality and without scenester polotics with HIM... HIM have a simple sound and driving rythems. They have tastes of glam/metal/dirgish-goth and they do this sound with such a pop hook catchyness its infectious.

Ville Valo sings with such vocal flair its like watching David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Stephen Tyler, Mick Jagger strut the stage with real rock and roll style.

If you like HIM at all chances are they will grow on you as time goes on. New crossing of music styles can be like tasting a new wine... you've never tasted anything like it and then you realize thats quite possibly the reason you want another taste of it.


HIM is finally in the U.S.!   October 29, 2003
 12 out of 14 found this review helpful

HIM's second release is finally re-released in the U.S. (again). This version is a little different from the original European releases because it includes the classic Chris Isaak cover Wicked Game, and the song Your Sweet 666 both off of HIM's first CD (Greatest Lovesongs Volume 666)
So many people with different music preferabilities enjoy HIM. They are the perfect mix of metal and love ballads, (hence their musical label of Love Metal, which also happens to be their newest album released in europe) This CD has the perfect mix of fast catchy music to the slow love songs, and Ville Valo's voice is wonderful. He can hit so many notes...About this CD being parental advisory: Ignore it, the PA is on their because of song number 3. Join Me (In Death) which is metaphorical, but the label insisted it was a song hinting suicide. But if you are ready for a change, definalty check out this CD, and look out for HIM, because they are definatly going to blow up.

BUY IT NOW!