one in million
13 years ago
Tuesday 9 March 2010
Love Metal- New album out April. An essay on Metallurgy or was it alchemy?
Three albums into their career, with healthy combined sales of 2 million, HIM felt it was the right time to define a couple of things. Define HIM – the band. Define the music, already commonly known as Love Metal. And, last but not least, figure of the deeper meanings and the mighty Heartagram!
You hold the results in your hands, compact form of “Love Metal”. One and a half year worth of exploration and soul searching, as well as the time-honored tradition of ‘working one’s ass off’, has gone into these ten songs.
”There we were. Cas a hopeless Slayer addict and Burton completely hooked on Tchaikovsky. Mige getting high on Brian Eno and Linde tripping on Jimi Hendrix on regular basis. Me, I was curing my hangovers with Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison. The ‘me’ being Valo, vocals and songs. Cas on drums, Burton on keyboards, Mige on Bass, Lide on Guitar. Collectively they are known as HIM.
“We had no idea where it would lead us in the end. Whether it would turn out to be silly psychedelic music or the meanest motherfucker of metal known to man,” Valo grins. “But it felt really good. We just incorporated all the elements that came naturally and took it from there. Wth pretty mediocre success, of course…”
The making of ‘Love Metal’ was a two dimensional thing. The album was produced and recorded in Helsinki by Huli Hulesmaa. Producer of the very first HIM album back in 1997. Hulesma is noted for his work with mostly pretty uncompromising metal bands (Sentenced, Moonspell, Amorphis, Theatre of Tragedy…), and easygoing as he might be on the outside, in certain respects he run his tight regime.
The second dimension came about through a transatlantic move. Next stop was Scream Studios, Los Angeles. Birthplace of Nirvana’s “Nevermind”. Faith No More’s “The Real Thing” and countless other latter-day classics. The album was mixed there by Tim Palmer whose work especially with U2, caught Valo’s attention. Light and darkness clashing. Complement each other beautifully. The end result is a vibrant concoction of in-your-face riffs, heavy beats and sweet soulful melodies.
Heartagram – Harder than titanium, softer than pure gold, quicker than silver. Ted hot or cold as steel. This is Love Metal.
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