HIM- Dark Light CD review

Ville Valo — lead vocals, acoustic guitar
Mikko "Linde" Lindström — lead guitar, acoustic guitar
Mikko "Migé" Paananen — bass guitar, backing
Mika "Gas Lipstick" Karppinen — drums, percussion
Janne "Burton" Puurtinen — keyboard, backing vocals

Finnish rock band HIM since the formation in 1991 by vocalist Ville Valo to date have released seven albums. The fifth album ‘Dark light’ (which has two different covers, and made HIM the first Finnish band to have a gold album in the United States) made it into my CD collection a few weeks ago, and is it now collecting dust on my shelf or stuck in my CD non stop? After first listening to the introduction songs it didn’t hit me straight away, but after repeating the songs they grew on me and became more listenable.

When I first listened to the first couple of songs from dark light after a hard day at college feeling quite fed up, hitting the bed with a relief I jammed the CD into my cd player and hit play. Opening track ‘Vampire Heart’ is quite a satisfying introduction to the album for its laid-back melody with an easy going progression.

‘Killing loneliness’ is more hard hitting as it involves more ‘guitarage’ (RAWR!) which makes the song fast paced with a sense of urgency, it’s more of a stand out song as HIM’s other songs are slower paced and have more of a low mood with quite depressing lyrics. Title track ‘Dark light’ is a ballad with quite a soft tone which makes the listener more relaxed.

Overall HIM’s mixture of both fast and slow paced songs are catchy and has served them well as they’ve released seven albums so far, the songs from ‘Dark light’ are a good example of their work. After listening to this album I would definitely be inspired to buy more of HIM’s albums.