Venus Doom - HIM

I am going to be completely honest with you, dear Ciaosters, from the very start of this review: I haven’t listened to HIM in quite a while. Well, I haven’t properly listened to the Finnish five piece in ages, apart from their Greatest Hits release from the mid-noughties. However, that all changed last week when one of my Uni buddies convinced me to go with her to see the band live. Since then, I’ve been listening to HIM non-stop whenever and wherever I can and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my little trip down memory lane when I used to appreciate darker music a lot more than I do now.

But because somewhere along the line I got a little fed up of hearing lead singer Ville Valo’s rather samey laments involving love and death, I didn’t bother to purchase 2007’s ‘Venus Doom’ when it first came out; I wasn’t altogether struck with the first single and for me, it never lived up to the glorious sounds of ‘Love Metal’ and ‘Dark Light’, the bands releases from 2003 and 2005 respectively. Yet when it comes to CD sales, I can hardly resist myself and HMV’s bribe of ‘two CDs for £10’ inspired me to buy ‘Venus Doom’ for what I consider to be very little money.

For those of you who are blissfully unaware of His Infernal Majesty (if we are to give HIM their unabridged name), you may be delighted to hear that their style of music is in an entirely different vein to The Beatles so for this review, I won’t be cooing about synthesisers or slushy ballads...at least not intentionally. You see, HIM are more hardcore than all of that; influences such as Iggy Pop and Black Sabbath are undeniably at the core of the instrumental arrangements but for lead singer and songwriter Ville Valo, HIM is all about expressing his deepest thoughts whilst trying to seek some form of solace from failed relationships along the way.

However, the lead up to ‘Venus Doom’ has to be regarded from an outsiders perspective as the most challenging year or two of Valo’s life; other than having to come to terms with the death of a very close friend, Ville’s own personal demons took a hold of him in the form of a broken engagement and alcohol addiction. Although – I am pleased to say – Ville is sober to this day and seemingly much happier than he once was, ‘Venus Doom’ was an album written when Valo was in a very different place, one that could have easily killed him if he hadn’t been smart enough to commit to rehab. After all, when a Doctor gives you an ultimatum of going to a rehabilitation centre or heading to A&E due to heart failure, you know your life needs a major overhaul...

So now that I’ve set the scene, let me take you on a tour of HIM’s sixth studio album; it promises to be a bleak ride and I’d like to point out that this is only the second time I’ve ever heard this album in my life so my thoughts are at their rawest and most instinctual, as any critique of music has a right to be.

‘LEAVE ALL BEHIND NOW TO WATCH HER CRAWL’ (Lyrics from ‘Venus Doom’)

Starting off the album with the rev of an engine and the sigh of a lead singer, the album’s title track promises to be every bit the epitome of a hardcore rock song as 2003’s ‘Love Metal’s’ opener, ‘Buried Alive By Love’ was. And indeed, ‘Venus Doom’ starts of well with a good, steady beat which supports Ville’s melancholic purrs, making the track seem even more authentic; the first track seems to be a song about lovers who are losing their ways in life and can only find some form of comfort and security in one another, even if it is a self-destructive love affair at best. However, I find ‘Venus Doom’ to be a convincing opener in some respects – for example, it hosts an ever catchy hook at the chorus which is down to Ville’s vocals above all else – but it falls rather flat somewhere along the line; the guitar solo in the middle, although good, makes it seem as if the band are a tribute act rather than artists trying to establish their own sound. It’s all a little predictable until chimes break up the monotony and progress the song into a truly twisted lullaby.

I’m torn about Ville’s singing on ‘Venus Doom’; his voice is still sensual and holds the chorus together well but sounds a little bored in places. Thankfully, by dropping its tone to its lowest depths, Ville manages to make his voice one of the main selling points of the song as it furthers the notion of this track being a lullaby in the loosest sense of the word and is actually quite a chilling addition to the opening song. ‘Venus Doom’ is very easily one of the catchiest numbers on the record but I suspect it’ll take more than a couple of listens to worship it as such.

‘Love In Cold Blood’ doesn’t seek to pick up the pace too dramatically and you’d be forgiven for thinking that ‘Venus Doom’ was still going on. Whereas the lyrics concentrate on Ville’s favourite topics in life – love and death – which doesn’t come as much of a surprise, some of the sound effects used throughout the track add a little spark to the song and lift it from being an averagely thought out rock track to something a little better. Valo’s vocals on this one are more adventurous and are multi-tracked to make it seem like there is an argument going on within his mind of which direction his life should head in. Lead guitarist Linde’s riff on this song seems a lot more passionate too and the backing of drums from Gas Lipstick (yep, that is his stage name) makes the song seem a lot more menacing. One of my favourite things about ‘Love In Cold Blood’ is the last minute or so of music where everything descends in a similar way to the opening of the White Stripes’ song ‘Icky Thump’; the instruments seem to be a lot more layered and unintentional, proving to be the band at their finest on this album. Again, I suspect it’ll take a good couple of listens before I really do fall in love with ‘Love In Cold Blood’ away from the sing-along and easy to memorise chorus.

The third song, ‘Passion’s Killing Floor’ begins once again with the forcefulness of the guitar which dips between keys to create a fairly intimidating and darker sound and this sets the tone for some pretty bizarre sound effects later on in the song. The band’s keyboardist Burton adds a bit of a different sound to this one with a nice backing instrumental during the chorus but it would have been altogether more effective if the keyboard had been put at the forefront of this song; already, after three tracks of this album, the guitars are sounding a little similar. I am unsure as to whether I like the Grim Reaper-esque gongs after the second chorus either; the sound supports the idea that Ville’s heart is merely a graveyard of lost love and broken promises but at the same time, it felt a bit gimmicky and unnecessary to me, as if the sound effect had been added just to break up the onslaught of guitars a little bit.

Whereas I am normally in favour of Ville’s lyrics in the sense that he has written some of the most sensitive and beautiful rock love songs of all time, ‘Passion’s Killing Floor’ didn’t strike me as being a song that was mulled over for very long; the analogy of a heart being a graveyard and lovers being entombed seemed a little unoriginal to me. Overall, I can’t envisage ‘Passion’s Killing Floor’ being one that grows on me overtime as the previous two tracks promise to; ‘Venus Doom’ and ‘Love In Cold Blood’ stand out a lot more to me after only a couple of listens and both tracks seem to have a lot more energy and fervour to them.

‘I’M REACHING FOR YOUR SHADOW DROWNING IN/THE KISS OF DAWN’ (Lyrics from ‘The Kiss of Dawn’)

With the slap of the drums and a slightly different combination of guitars, ‘The Kiss of Dawn’ would perhaps have been a more suitable opener to this album for me than ‘Venus Doom’; it seems to introduce the notion of dealing with the consequences of death a lot more fluidly than the title track and seems to be a song that is a lot more familiar and typically HIM than anything else on the album. ‘The Kiss of Dawn’ isn’t overly complicated in terms of lyrics; it was said to be the song dedicated to the memory of the band’s dead friend and I think the simplicity and repetition of the lyrics is a wonderful yet indirect metaphor for the confusion that comes with the territory of a loved one committing suicide. In spite of the songs rather gloomy topic, I think this is masked somehow by Ville’s vocals at the chorus; it’s definitely one of the records most ‘sing-a-long’ friendly songs as the vocals don’t dip too far down the scale into baritone territory, as they did with ‘Venus Doom’. I also like the backing howls on this one, provided by bassist Migé, as the additional vocals seem to make the song even more unsettling.

The guitars are the instrument that makes ‘The Kiss of Dawn’ stand out a little more than some of the others because there are a few moments that remind me of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ by Led Zep; whether that was intentional or just coincidental I’m not sure but Linde’s playing boosts the track a little bit and makes it seem a little more focus and complicated than many of the songs on the album so far. I love the way that the guitar sort of recoils unexpectedly at the start before evolving into a breakdown and returning up to speed with a solo performance to be proud of by Linde; it sort of seems a bit more inspired before a respectable fade out end where the keyboard imitates an organ perhaps to resemble a funeral procession. Although ‘The Kiss of Dawn’ originally didn’t grab my attention enough to make me want to purchase ‘Venus Doom’ as it was the first single I always felt was a bit bland, after seeing HIM live I’ve sort of developed a flavour for this track and ‘The Kiss of Dawn’ is without a doubt one of my favourites on this record.

‘I UNLIT THE LIGHT TO EMBRACE THE DARK’ (Lyrics from ‘Sleepwalking Past Hope’)

‘Sleepwalking Past Hope’ has the privilege of not only being the longest track on this album but the longest of HIM’s career so far. Clocking in at just over ten minutes, it’s easy to assume that this one will have many different sounds meshed together to create a broodier ‘A Day In The Life’ or a more sorrowful ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which is certainly the case, even if the different ‘parts’ of the song don’t necessarily spring to life upon the first couple of listens.

‘Sleepwalking Past Hope’ begins with a characteristically solid performance by pianist Burton but somehow seems spoilt by the addition of guitars; it’s as if Linde comes in too soon on this song as the track seems a little flawed – I would have loved to hear the soft melancholy of the piano for a couple more seconds before everyone began rocking out on this one. However, I will forgive HIM for that as I actually think track number five is one of the strongest songs on the entire album for a good couple of reasons. First of all, the different sections of the song run sinuously together and I enjoy the addition of crows squawking a la ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ by the Fab Four to the point where I don’t find it being in the slightest gimmicky. Secondly, whereas some of the lyrics on this album so far have been borderline emotastic (look up the genre of ‘emo’ if you’re unsure) I think Valo manages to capture his thoughts well without everything seeming a bit teenage angstish on this one. Odes to Placebo with the downgrading of guitar scratches also brought a smile to my face and I can safely say that the more I listen to ‘Sleepwalking Past Hope’, the more I enjoy it; everything progresses logically and I just wish that more of the songs on this album could have been written as well.

Unfortunately, I can’t say that track number six manages to stay on such favourable ground; ‘Dead Lover’s Lane’ seems a bit too similar lyrically to ‘Passion’s Killing Floor’ and is a song about taking a trip in your memory to see where past love has failed so miserably. On a more positive note, whilst it might not be the most musically adventurous of all tracks on ‘Venus Doom’ in the sense that you can foresee exactly where guitar solos are set to take place, I like the fact that the song has a lighter feel to it by Ville’s singing drifting further away from the darkness of the baritone. I thoroughly enjoyed the screams at the end to which proves Valo to be a capable metal singer whilst remaining in his comfort zone of death laced lyrics.

The only thing that I wish the band could have changed about this track would undeniably be the way it ends; paying tribute to My Chemical Romance (an emotastic band if ever there was one) is great for new acts but I feel for an established rock band, scorching out the guitar in a ‘Helena’ type way seemed to discredit the song immensely. Sadly, ‘Dead Lover’s Lane’ gets lost in the dark after such an interesting and deep track like ‘Sleepwalking Past Hope’ to the point where I do question its place on the album; it does seem like a track that was thrown on for the hell of it, unfortunately.

However, on an abnormally brighter note, ‘Song or Suicide’ seems to rescue the latter part of the album in an oddly ominous way; whereas the album is host to the bands longest track to date, ‘Song or Suicide’ is the bands shortest number at this point in time and is one of the less instrumentally overwhelming of their career. Valo’s vocals work incredibly well with just the strums of an acoustic guitar for comfort. In a way, ‘Song or Suicide’ reminds me of the song ‘Gone With The Sin’, one of HIM’s single releases from their second album ‘Razorblade Romance’; I’m not entirely sure why I feel this way because the songs do sound very different but there is a certain mystery to ‘Song or Suicide’ that just made me think if ‘Gone With The Sin’. Of course, I’ll probably work that out after another couple of listens but the main downside to this song is the fact that it doesn’t last very long. Concentrating on the positives, ‘Song or Suicide’ seems a lot less banal and more sincere than the majority of the songs on this album, and I do think that has a lot to do with the songs length.

‘YOU HAD DEMONS TO KILL WITHIN YOUR SCREAMING’ (Lyrics from ‘Bleed Well’)

Although the opening is dominated by an overtly familiar guitar riff reminiscent to that on ‘The Kiss of Dawn’, ‘Bleed Well’ is a well paced track that manages to let the drums and guitar do battle subtly underneath Valo’s calmer and more soothing singing. ‘Bleed Well’ once again lurks in the love and death lyric territory but sounds a little more off the cuff than all of that; it’s not the most original track on the entire album and Linde’s guitar work is a little too recognisable to some of Metallica’s beforehand but at least the song allows for Ville to get in a high note or two towards the end and some Alter Bridge-esque screams. The thing about ‘Bleed Well’ that I can’t for the life of me understand is the fact that it was the band’s second single from this album; it’s an underwhelming choice if ever there was one considering the title track and ‘Love In Cold Blood’ are not only a lot catchier but a lot formidable. ‘Bleed Well’ reminds me a lot of one of the band’s previous efforts called ‘Poison Girl’, not because of the musical arrangement or even the lyrics, but because it seems too familiar and a little bit bland without being altogether dislikeable.

‘Bleed Well’ would have just been better off as an album filler rather than a single in my opinion as I don’t think it shows the album off in itself best (or even darkest) light. The only thing I sort of remember about it is Ville’s whining of ‘baby, we’re bleeding well’ at the end of the chorus and even though I’ve only just listened to the album in its entirety, the guitars, drums and keyboard are a very distant memory...

By track number nine, we’re already bidding farewell to the album but its last song, ‘Cyanide Sun’ sees Valo’s words at their most mournful and seems to me to be a regretful reference to how his relationship with his then-fiancé ended; the mentions of addiction and lost love all points to the forlorn couple and it’s impossible for me not to think of the vocalist’s doomed relationship when I hear this track. Whereas a lot of the songs on this album have been mid-pace, ‘Cyanide Sun’ seems a lot more like a funeral procession; the drums have overtaken the guitar as the most dominating instrument on the song to the point where it’s possible to hear some piano work in there somewhere. Having said that, I like the way that the song lets the gentle acoustic guitar control the ending; it makes the song seem so much more remorseful and contemplative rather than being a scream of instruments marking its demise. It might not be one of the most memorable or excitable tracks on the album but to me, ‘Cyanide Sun’ is one of the best executed for its ability to take a slower pace and make all of the instruments have a moment to shine in some way or another and makes for a suitable ending to the album.

Plus, I have to praise Ville’s almost Darren Hayes like falsetto notes in there; I’ve never heard Valo’s voice get to such a pitch before and that in itself makes ‘Cyanide Sun’ a little different to the other eight songs on this album.

HOW DOES ‘VENUS DOOM’ COMPARE TO HIM’S PREVIOUS RELEASES?

One thing I will say about ‘Venus Doom’ is that I’d be keen to listen to it in its entirety again, which hasn’t happened with many HIM albums in the past for me; their first release ‘Greatest Love Songs’ is good to a point because you can identify that HIM were a band with lots of promise and had a knack for covering song poppish songs, namely ‘Wicked Game’ and ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’ with a lot of charm. Such magnetism manages to mask the majority of faults with their second release, ‘Razorblade Romance’, which has some brilliant singles but not so great album fillers along the way. Yet ‘Venus Doom’ is thankfully a world away from the lacklustre and mediocre record that was ‘Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights’ from the start of the noughties; 2007’s release sounded more confident and less poserish, even if Valo was about on his last legs during its recording.

On the other hand, what ‘Venus Doom’ lacks for me is the brilliance of ‘Love Metal’ and ‘Dark Light’, the bands fourth and fifth albums respectably. What I liked about both of those records was that even if the matters of the heart were discussed in a less favourable matter, there was always some form of hope lingering there from the all out tenderness of my favourite ‘The Sacrament’ from 2003 to the whimsical beauty of ‘Dark Light’s’ title track. Yet, with ‘Venus Doom’, it just feels like a very morose record and as if the experiences Ville is singing about are impossible to overcome and conquer; I think this album would have benefitted enormously from a slightly more optimistic track which none of them on ‘Venus Doom’ seem to be in the slightest.

OVERALL: COULD I RECOMMEND ‘VENUS DOOM’?

For me personally, I have to say that when HIM are good, they’re exceptional and when they’re bad, they’re quite dull. ‘Venus Doom’ exhibits both flipsides of that coin for me; there are some brilliant moments on there – namely ‘The Kiss of Dawn’ and ‘Sleepwalking Past Hope’ – but at the same time, there are some songs I could potentially happily skip every time I listen to this album and have no regrets. I am glad I have become a fan of ‘The Kiss of Dawn’ though; the mix on the album ends in a less conventional way than the single release and for me, it’s made the song completely different and allowed me to picture a totally different meaning to it. The fact that the band performed it well when I went to see them live also helps as I love it when an artist can pull a song off an album and make it seem even more chilling and meaningful in a live context and HIM certainly did that for me with ‘The Kiss of Dawn’.

If you’re not a fan of lots of loud guitar work, I’d urge you not to bother with ‘Venus Doom’; it’s an album that puts a great emphasis on all of that without really considering the lighter side of rock. On the album ‘Love Metal’, two of the single releases ‘The Funeral of Hearts’ and ‘The Sacrament’ seem to offer the listener more of a shadow and light feel to the band and I think that’s explored reasonably well on the fifth album ‘Dark Light’. But on ‘Venus Doom’, lurking beneath the surface, there is a sense that the band wanted one last chance to rock out in a sophomoric way before the wrath of middle age for rock stars (i.e. the early thirties) grasps hold of them too tightly. However, the sometimes cringeworthy, death addled lyrics worked against this whole idea of rocking out to me as Valo was trying his hardest to exhibit pain beyond his years; it seemed that his lyrics were bundled together by clichés sometimes whilst being void of real feelings on a couple of the tracks and that lets the album down considerably for me. In some ways, however, it did work for the band to take that kind of outlook on their music and it was a joy to hear some of the group’s influences, like Metallica and Led Zeppelin, in there. On the downside, it feels like an album that was thrown together very hastily and doesn’t try to come up with something a little more original on some tracks, such as ‘Bleed Well’ and ‘Passion’s Killing Floor’ which could have been much better if the lyrics or piano managed to get more of a look in.

The fact that the album only hosts nine tracks may make some people a little weary before purchasing this one over some of HIM’s slightly longer albums. I have to say that none of the bands releases have many more than ten songs on them and I think that’s a good thing; by the end of the album, you do get a sense that you’ve listened to absolutely everything the band has to offer you at that stage and whilst some songs, particularly ‘Bleed Well’ could have done with a slightly longer incubation period, any more songs could have ruined this album and made Ville’s mourning’s of love and death seem too repetitive and predictable.

Overall, ‘Venus Doom’ is an album I think I will listen to over and over again for a little while, forget about when I’m in a happier mood before rediscovering it when I’ve had a bit of a crap day. It’s an album that is too dark to be considered as having a lot of variety (well, as much variety as a band like HIM can offer) but by the same token, I wish that the instruments had been a bit more varied rather than being an overabundant mixture of guitar solos and drum beats. It’s plain to see that Ville wasn’t in the best of conditions whilst writing this album so he wasn’t at his normal, poetic self but I quite like how raw this album seems to me. Valo clearly did his darnedest to ‘Bleed Well’ for his fans and let them know that the life of a Rock God ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

QUICK STATS:

Year: 2007
Tracks: 9
Length: 48.12 mins approximately
Genre: metal with classic rock influences
Buy at: HMV for £7 or two CDs for £10 (offer valid for a limited time only)