Romancing the soul of Download 2005
The crowd are screaming and demanding the presence of the Gods of love metal, or more than likely the appearance of Ville Vallo, lead singer of the ever romantic HIM. Ville begins the serenade with the magical 'Right Here In My Ams' and the rest of the band keep the romantic melodies purring seductively. However, the excessive smoking and drinking habits of Ville have left excessive strain and damage upon his once seductive and alluring voice. Still, as flat as he is, his charm and magnetism obviously hasn't faded especially for the ladies in the crowd.
After a brief confrontation as bottles are thrown, condemning the act as blasphemy due to the fact that Ozzy will be standing in his place later on, they kick straight into the beautiful 'Buried Alive By Love'. Unfortunately this only shows Ville up even more. Maybe part of the blame can be placed on yet more sound imbalances courtesy of the sound technicians on the main stage, but even those don't make up for fact Ville's voice wretches and cuts out all over the lace like a broken record. It is funny how it seems to be the 'Love Metal' songs that Ville struggles with the most, it shows just how much his voice has disintegrated as he has tried to progress with the band. He can still manage to purr seductively along to his older 'Razorblade Romance' material, 'Join Me In Death' and 'Sweet 666', which engulf the audience with their romantic, sweeping melodies that call out to every broken heart and soul and offer a little short term healing.
Still, Ville lights up yet another cigarette and there seems to be no sign of improvement on his part, not even for the driving 'Soul On Fire'. They then go on to play a new song called 'Vampire Heart' that sounds like a throwback from 'Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights' much to the crowd's delight as 'Deep Shadows...' is by far and away the best album they ever produced. Slow, seductive with a touch of mystery added by gentle piano melodies, it is a beautiful song and no doubt will blow minds on CD but the live performance just can't do the inner beauty any justice. You can hear it there but it's just not coming through, the emotion that should be soaring through into the vocals isn't there. Ville's voice just isn't strong enough anymore. A disappointing performance from HIM which proves that smoking really isn't something a professional vocalist should be inflicting upon their career.