HIM: SCREAMWORKS: LOVE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE, CHAPTERS 1-13

SCORE: 100/100


After 2007's heavier 'Venus Doom', HIM went back to a more accessible and melodic project full of their distinctive catchy choruses, this time with Ville Valo having a muse for the project.

'Screamworks' is light and accessible like 'Dark Light' and 'Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights', but in a way that provides even more clarity than both of those albums. It's incredibly impressive that they released an album this good so far into their career together as a band, and some of their most beautiful tracks are within the 13 "chapters" of this album.

I had heard a few tracks from 'Screamworks' prior to my sit-down listen, but I had held off (which was SO hard to do) on listening to the whole album so I could listen to the band's previous works first. There's something absolutely awe-striking about this album, and some of the band's most overlooked material resides here. 'In Venere Veritas' is easily one of the best album openers I have ever heard, and it sets the bar incredibly high for the rest of the project.

Ville Valo's vocal performances are exceptionally stellar on this album, with his vocal range on 'In Venere Veritas' being completely shocking to me on first listen; it's clear to see that he's always been a great vocalist, but he sounds even more clear all throughout this album. The songs are less dark and more full of a radiant light, with the melodies and choruses coming together in the same catchy nature as the tracks on 'Razorblade Romance'.

This album uses more synths than any of their previous work, giving it a unique and somewhat poppy edge that still has their rock elements very much in tact. It caters to fans gorgeously while creating an atmosphere that is appropriate for an even wider audience, and the tracks are best described as simply beautiful in their compositions. It's a stunning and consistent body of work, and this is one of their catchiest albums with some of their most memorable tracks - one's that are easy to get stuck inside of your head time and time again.

The band transitioned into the 2010s with exceptional grace, and the tracks here are easily some of their best outputs. I'm entirely stunned by this project as a whole, and the consistency of it all is a beautiful thing. The atmosphere of the album is instantaneously noticeable - and it's captivating at every note. It's tender and full of melody, and the tracks feel like something worth screaming your heart out to every time they play.

Few albums have made me as emotional as some of the material from this one has, and it's a project full of so much feeling that it's impossible to ignore. Despite being one of their more underappreciated albums, it manages to be one of their best works. It's deeply cohesive in every sense of the world, and the overall sound of this project mixes 'Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights', 'Dark Light', and 'Razorblade Romance' into one newfound package.

It feels like a masterful blend of everything that the band had worked towards, all of the sounds they had used blended into one delicately wrapped, intricate package. It's a stunningly detailed project of everything that made HIM so great, and it's one of their final victory laps before what would become their final album as a band. It's almost bittersweet, but the memories are everlasting.

'Screamworks' is the band's most 80's-esque album, and the overall sound was made even more consistently great due to the band being able to rehearse more than ever before. Ville Valo's newfound sobriety saw him in a place of more positivity, and this album is full of life and love like never before seen on a HIM album - not like this.

It may be more light in tone than their previous works, but it's done in a way that makes the whole album feel like one blissful escapade. It's a stunning body of work that is consistent all throughout, and it's an underrated gem that you simply cannot let leave your radar. It's catchy like a pop album while having the gothic edge that HIM was known for, and it's done to an absolutely immaculate level.

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