HIM’s sixth studio album is out on the 10th of July 2007. I can’t wait!Completed tracks:LOVE IN COLD BLOOD– Doomy, Cathedral-worshipping guitars and a heavy crunch kick off this primal dirge. This is the heaviest HIM have ever sounded, until a gorgeously catchy chorus channels them into more familiar terrority-sounding terrority.THE KISS OF DAWN– Valo describes it as their Metallica moment and he isn’t kidding. It’s mean, dirty and has some of the heaviest sounds to ever come out of the Finnish quintet. This is Valo at his primal moment.DEAD LOVERS’ LANE– Infectious as fuck and probably the most Dark Light sounding song on the demo, and though unproduced a singularly lonely piano undercuts the richly layered wall of guitar and bass sounds. Dark? “It’s always dark”, says Valo.BLEED WELL– A ballad but of the darkest kind, it sounds as if Valo’s Baritone has dropped an octave and as if he’s bleeding from the heart himself. It isn’t happy by any stretch – it’s almost as if the usual wryness of Valo’s lyrics is absent here; that he’s poured genuine pain into the mircophone.PASSION’S KILLING FLOOR– Originally chosen to be the album’s title-track and replete with all the hallmarks of HIM’s highly embellished sound, it opens with Ville crooning ‘My heart’s a graveyard’ and ‘at first kiss the seeds of hatred are sown’. Valo denies he is speaking autobiographically here. As he sees it, he’s speaking for anyone who has ever kissed anyone.PASSION’S KILLING FLOOR (chorus)My heart’s a garveyard, baby,And to evil we make love on passion’s killing floor,In my arms you won’t sleep safely,And of lust we are reborn on passion’s killing floor.
