Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice is … very HIM: nothing unexpected. The band’s seventh album is true to love-metal form, with no hidden surprises or slap-in-the-face-drop-dead-awesome tracks. HIM fans will most likely be pleased but not ecstatically running down the street with new heartagram tattoos and Ville Valo face masks.
The 80s undertone present in HIM’s signature love-metal music matures in Screamworks, which presents poignant synth harmonies that contrast with the band’s familiar rock distortion and Valo’s melancholic vocals. Songs including Dying Song; In the Arms of Rain; Love, the Hardest Way and Heartkillers, which will most likely become the album’s most popular song, are reminiscent of the Bowie-inspired New Romantic movement of the early 80s. Screamworks says hello to androgyny, quiffs, eyeliner and lipstick.
HIM’s theme of tragic love persists and liebestod is expressed through Valo’s historical, mythological and religious references. The song master’s lyrics are sufficiently poetic and metaphoric to ensure that a sense of mystery remains. The irony in phrases like “little deaths to a dying song/ Sound a lot like life” (Dying Song) and “The promise of heaven pushed us right back to hell / Turned three sevens into three sixes again” (Disarm Me) entice listeners to explore Valo’s interpretation of life and love, and expression thereof through music.
From the new-agey vibe of The Foreboding Sense of Impending Happiness to the heavier In Venere Veritas and the catchy chorus of Like St. Valentine, the broad spectrum of HIM fans should be satisfied with Screamworks, and perhaps a couple of new fans won over.
