The title was made after the proved formula. You take something hard here, something tender there, pound it and get a harmonious contrast. What sounds like a recipe is the prescription of "Love Metal".
You will find this also in the arrangements of the new tracks: «The Love Metal-thing follows us since years. First it made us laugh because we did not get rid of it. When we realized that this term has become a part of that, what we were doing, we consequentially took it as the new album title», says Migé. The new overlay of the HIM-symbol, the fusion of a heart and a pentagram, was adopted to the new title: a Heartagram made of gold. Nothing has changed concerning the title of the album.
Everybody who put "Love Metal" into his CD player will first be hit by a strong headwind. The opener "Buried Alive By Love", is the hardest and fastest, what the band have recorded in their career; a solid Metal track with a plausible melody, which Valo comments narrowly: «We are getting old and sad. This is our last chance to Rock'n Roll».
The change of slow and fast dominates "Love Metal". «This time we tried a rise of dynamics. We have no claer ballad, there is no complete calm song, but also no clear rocksong apart from "Buried Alive By Love". We really wanted to hold this as heard as possibly».
To introduce the new work HIM planned something special. «The idea was, that we play the entire album from the beginning to the end for our fans, journalists and for the people from the record company», says Ville. Three hours after the Hamburg gig was announced at heartagram.com without any advance warning, all fan places were already booked out. Click, click, click people from all over the world, even from Australia, Brazil and the US have assured a ticket via internet. Most of them hear the single "The Funeral Of Hearts" for the first time. The release date is March...
The song is exactly what was expected of Villes romantic side: a ballad. But with much more power than "Pretending" or "In Joy And Sorrow". The hard contrast between the opener "Buried Alive By Love" and "The Funeral Of hearts" is the guidingline for the whole work. «Our album was produced again by Hiili, who also did the first one. We have recorded the whole album at the Finnvoxstudios in Helsinki, we mixed two tracks in London and the rest in L.A.», says Ville and continious «In some countries "Buried Alive By Love" will be the first single».
In "Soul On Fire" guitar improvisations step to the foreground. The last track "The Path" entwined psychedelic paths are taken, on which the guitar is shifting and looping. It get's romantic once again when it comes to track No.6, "The Sacrament". It starts with a soft piano-intro, followed by acoustic guitars and underlined by a fat bass.
Migé prescribes this: «We have the advantage that we are from Finland, were melancholy is from and so we succeded in making a heart tearing work». The piano parts could be this time build in because of Burton who's a classical educated keyboardplayer. The band have worked 1 1/2 year on this album.
Lyrically there weren't many changes. «The lyrical side of this album is a bit more intorverted, I do not sing that much about relationships between boys and girls. It is rather about to be grown up enough to respect what you have...», says Valo. Migé's about the lyrical aspect: «This time the lyrics are near to the ones of folksongs. They tell stories and there are a lot more symbols and complex themes».
Furthermore Migé reports about lots of strange rituals, to which Hiili has "forced" them in their second home the Finnvox-studios. «He gave us different characters, which we should play. Sometimes we played like frogs, sometimes lige tigers. Hiili brings out the personality of a band, he is a great producer».
The sound of the guitars on "Love Metal" is a lot more harder. «We went wanted to make them sound like they sound live», Migé adds and he goes on telling about the time in the studio: «We decided together with Hiili which tracks we will put on the album and which ones we better leave out. The most important thing for us was to spent a good time in the studio. Therefor the bandmembers have dragged lots of things into the studio to make them feel like home. We brought all our stuff there, little toys, masks and different tipes of clothes».
Finally "Love Metal" was released on 2003.
In March and April 2004 HIM did their "Love Metal Odysey Tour", which led them trough Switzerland, Austria and Germany. «This time we were more careful and more steady in the decicion to make it more to a HIM album. And we wanted to find out, what is good for HIM, not what is good for the ones out there...».

The Heartagram has a new layout.