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story
Is there
anybody who knows about the dark side of love while
being able sing about it beautifully at the same time? There
certainly is! Like no other vocalist before him, HIM frontman
Ville
Valo articulates escaping illusions as well as a strange belief
in the
inconceivability that is called love. Since the beginning of
their
career the band from Finland have been raking in just about every
award that a newcomer band may qualify for. In the annual polls
held by the two biggest Finish music magazines they were voted
"Newcomers Of the Year" and received the Emma award
(equivalent to the Grammy) in the same category in January. They
collected a similar award in the "Best Debut Album"
category for
their "Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666".
At home in Finland Ville & Co. are already considered the new
superstars of rock. With two top ten singles ("Your Sweet
Six Six
Six" & "When Love And Death Embrace") and
their debut album,
which immediately went gold in Scandinavia, HIM already belong
among the most successful Scandinavian rock newcomers ever.
Their
mixture of gothic-oriented rock and amazingly beautiful
melodies is bound to cause a sensation on our shores, too.
HIM’s
live qualities don’t fail to impress the Scandinavian music
press:
some claim that seeing Ville Valo perform live is like watching
the
reincarnation of Jim Morrison, others compare him with the young
David Bowie during his "Ziggy Stardust" era due to his
androgynous quality, and thanks to his incredible aura he is
unanimously considered the new male sex symbol. Ville’s
public
appearances are determined by the infamous boygroup syndrome:
where ever he turns up, packs of screaming girls materialize...
The success curve of the infernal melancholics HIM is still
rapidly
rising. It has just reached "The 13th floor".
Scandinavia has the
honour of delivering the swan song for Roland Emmerich’s
(Independence Day, Godzilla etc.) dark vision of the future which
is entitled like that. For the USA, it is the Swedish Pop wonder
The Cardigans ("Erase/Rewind"), in Europe, you can hear
HIM’s
"Join Me" towards the end of the profound cyber
thriller. This
soundtrack single for "The 13th floor" will see the
light of day on
November 2nd, a good three weeks prior to the official film
start.
The title track "Join Me" is a beautiful Gothic Rock
ballad for being
among one’s friends by the light of a candle on a grave,
and, for
the time being, the single will be released as a precious limited
Digi-Pak together with three bonus tracks which are: the sad Rock
song "It’s All Tears" in a velvety-swinging
unplugged version
including a humming double-bass and a whirring organ and Ville
Valo who shows the full spectrum of the contrasts of his voice.
The one who won’t go all goose-pimply to that, may then rock
to
the powerful, very playful live version of Billy Idol’s
"Rebel Yell".
And the
very true devotees will get a special gem with "Dark
Secret Love", previously only included in a very limited
(1.000
copies) 4-song-EP from 1996 which had been released only in
Finland. This bulky heavy chunk always swings dangerously
between elegy and agony, but is nevertheless a love song (as you
can tell by its title) sung by Ville as a duet with Sanna-June
Hyde
who had already proved the qualities of her voice on the latest
album during the track "(Don’t Fear) The Reaper".
The one who
only snatches hold of the regular MCD in a "normal"
case has, alas, to do without this gloomy ray of light, but,
having three
gorgeous songs as a foretaste, he may look forward to the
forthcoming album which is probably due out in February 2000,
mixed and produced by John Fryer (Depeche Mode, Fields Of The
Nephilim, White Zombie, Nine Inch Nails amongst others) who has
also mixed and produced the single. Then they are going to
proceed to the 14th floor and further upward to the sky until
they
have reached the 666th floor.
---
poison girl
Two, three,
four -- and go! Well, you can tell right from the start
when HIM drummer Gas Lipstick starts counting in, that
something big is to follow. Indeed -- Poison Girl is the third
single
so far, taken from the mega album Razorblade Romance, and it
will definitely secure the exceptional position of HIM in Germany
and Europe.
Poison Girl is carried by incredibly groovin' guitar licks, with
a
rhythm that zips along mercilessly, and a rather scarcely
arranged
stanza in which Ville Valo finds all the space imaginable to give
his incredible voice.
Poison Girl ends in a chorus which comes very close to a finale
furioso – so it becomes what you might call an anthem!
Once again HIM prove that they have an unerring feeling for
rocking tracks that become hits, mixed with just the right amount
of melancholy -- a mixture with which they leave all competitors
behind.
And since Poison Girl had already been a highlight at the
concerts on their recent tour, we included the live version of
this
song as a bonus track on this single release. Also on this
release:
Right Here in My Arms -- live, of course, and super groovin' --
as
well as It's All Tears, taken from the debut album Greatest
Lovesongs Vol. 666, also a live version!
HIM know how to treat their fans!
original information from www.gun-supersonic.de/supersonic
