As a lifelong HIM fan, I can easily recall their album cycles. I remember the fervor surrounding Dark Light, the premiere of “Wings of a Butterfly,” and Ville Valo’s new haircut (fangirls wept). Listening to Venus Doom brings back memories of dissecting the album on the fan message boards, debating which song was the best. Yet, HIM’s final era feels like a blur. I don’t remember much about the release of Tears on Tape. No memorable performances or interviews come to mind. I remember struggling to buy the Metal Hammer fan pack edition of the record at work and being anxious about interviewing Ville Valo for the first time. He called me “Darling.” I still swoon thinking about it. When I finally got the album, I played it for weeks, waiting for the moment when it clicked with me. It never did. I didn’t think it was bad, just decent. Then I forgot about it and moved on, already looking forward to HIM’s next record. What I didn’t know was that Tears on Tape would be their final album.
This is an album I always forget. Looking at the tracklist, I barely remember the songs, aside from the singles. It never comes to mind when thinking about their discography. It’s not my go-to when I’m in the mood for HIM (that would be Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666). Something about the record is utterly forgettable. But why? It has all the makings of a great HIM album: chunky riffs, morose lyrics about love and death, Ville Valo’s sweet baritone crooning. So why doesn’t it hit like their other records? Something is clearly lacking. Little did we know, the band was dealing with issues behind the scenes that bled into their final record.
After the lukewarm response to their seventh album, Screamworks: Love In Theory and Practice, and its companion remix album, SWRMXS (it’s pretty bad), HIM was uncertain about their future. In recent interviews, Ville Valo revealed they discussed whether they should’ve called it a day, but decided to give it another try with one more album. Moving away from the maligned poppy, upbeat direction of their previous record, the next release promised to be heavier, darker, and to explore new territory for the band. In a 2012 interview with ArtistDirect.com, Valo described the new music as “really organic, straight-in-your-face, super melancholy bullshit. It’s going to be something nobody’s heard before. I’m really happy about it. It sounds great. Remember the soundtrack for Twin Peaks that Angelo Badalamenti did? It’s got that similar forlorn, melancholy quality but mixed up with Motörhead. That’s where we’re at! We’re really happy.” Though they were optimistic about the album, it was the beginning of the band’s most difficult period.
Rehearsals for Tears on Tape began in 2011 but came to a halt when drummer Gas Lipstick started complaining about fiery pain in his right arm. He was diagnosed with a repetitive stress injury and nerve damage, forcing him to step away from the drum kit for the next eight months. Rather than hiring a replacement, the band waited for him to heal, but it stalled the recording process. “The frustrating thing about that was the doctors couldn’t tell, a) whether he’d be able to play again, and b) how long it would take to heal, if it did heal,” Valo told Metal Hammer in 2013. “So we’d wait for 30 days, and the doctors were, like, ‘No, you’ve got to wait another month.’ And another month. And another… We were discussing the options – should we start working with somebody else, and when Gas gets better, have him rejoin the band? Everybody was half-weeping, and we said, ‘No, we can’t do that. Let’s just wait it out.'”
When Gas made a full recovery, they returned to the studio in 2012 to resume work on the album, during which Valo struggled with writer’s block. This being their first release on their new label, Razor & Tie, after leaving Sire Records at the beginning of the year, only added to the mounting pressure. Tears on Tape was finally released on April 26th, 2013, and was generally well-received. Selling 20,000 units in its first week, it became their second-highest charting album in the U.S. behind 2007’s Venus Doom. Metal Hammer gave it 4/5, citing the record’s tight songwriting and moody melodies. Revolver called it “a sentimentally sweet, sonically stunning, and beautifully packaged album.” Classic Rock said the album was “a glorious return to form for one of the world’s most peculiarly successful bands”. HIM was finally back in full swing.
The band prepped for their North American tour, scheduled to start a month after the album’s release, but days before the kickoff, Valo was diagnosed with severe pneumonia. The tour was canceled. After recovering, the band returned to the stage a few months later for the “Rock of Allegiance” tour with Volbeat and All That Remains. They spent the next two years on the road, touring across the United States, Australia, and the U.K. They also embarked on their first South American tour in 2014. Things seemed to be back to normal for HIM until Gas Lipstick left in 2015. “There is no drama, bad blood, or any negativity involved in my departure,” he reassured fans in his statement. “I simply feel that it’s time for me to move on as a musician.”
Once again, the band was at an impasse. Do they keep going or call it quits? “We were unsure of what to do next. I was the guy who forcefully tried to get us a new drummer and try one last time,” Valo told Metal Hammer in 2017. “Tears on Tape was a great moment for us, but people didn’t like it. It was time to prove people wrong, but we ran out of juice, and then Gas left the band at the moment we should have been d’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers, or five. In the face of adversity, some people become stronger. That’s what I was hoping for.” They tried moving forward with new drummer, Jukka “Kosmo” Kröger. After performing some shows with Kröger, they went on a brief hiatus in 2016. During this time, they discussed making another record together, but it never happened. Though they worked on new material, they didn’t like any of it and felt something was off. They finally accepted the truth: the band was over.
HIM announced their breakup on March 5th, 2017, putting the nail in the coffin of their 26-year career. In later interviews, Valo says they should’ve ended in 2010, but they didn’t want to admit the band was over. “It took quite a long time for us to realize that the story of HIM had ended,” Valo told Sonic Seducer in 2023. “After ‘Tears on Tape’, Gas left the band. Then we found a new guy. We toured a bit. We tried to get everything to work. But it just didn’t sound as good as we wanted to. I think that we lost the spark, so to speak. And we tried to be adult about it and realized that maybe it’s just not our time, because you couldn’t blame us for not trying. We really tried to figure out…we sat down long and hard and tried to figure out if there’s anything we could give the world musically and decided that it’s the perfect time to end it.”
With the stress and strain of HIM’s final years, it makes sense why Tears on Tape feels lifeless. It’s the sound of a band struggling to keep going. Listening to the album now, it’s not bad, but it’s not the exciting new sound they promised. It’s a darker, heavier take on their classic sound; their way of paying homage to influences like Black Sabbath and Fields of Nephilim. Ultimately, it’s a fine record. The songs are decent, if mostly forgettable. The lyrics are classic Ville Valo: morose, romantic, haunting, and melodramatic. Songs like “Hearts At War” and “All Lips Go Blue” have those heavy riffs that go hard. For the first time, the band incorporated instrumental interludes to tie the record together, one of the only times they step away from their tried-and-true formula. However, the singles are weak, but standouts like “W.L.S.T.D.,” “No Love,” and “I Will Be the End of You” make it a worthwhile listen.
Yet, as their final album, it doesn’t hold up. They went out on a whimper rather than a bang. It lacks the passion and energy of records like Razorblade Romance and Love Metal. It feels lifeless. There’s no urgency to these songs; some of them are just boring. Even Valo’s trademark velvety smooth vocals sound flat and tired. A 2013 Under the Gun review puts it best by saying the album “never finds a way to move you.” And that’s its biggest issue. The record has no personality. It’s just kind of there. The songs are fine, but I rarely want to hear them outside of the album. For all the flak Screamworks: Love and Theory in Practice received, it has so much more energy and is a fun listen. It kept me moving from start to finish. Moments like this are rare on Tears on Tape.
Revisiting the album, I was hoping to finally “get” Tears on Tape. I thought it would be one of those records I couldn’t appreciate when it was released. My taste in music can be fluid, so maybe now I’ll realize it’s a hidden gem. Sadly, this isn’t the case. The record still doesn’t click with me. Though there are some songs I like, I still can’t get into it. For me, the album fails to capture what made HIM so special. It feels like they made a record because they felt they had to. Valo even admitted they had something to prove after the poor reception of Screamworks (even though it’s a great record). It’s not a bad album by any means, but it’s the weakest in their discography.
Over a decade since its release, Tears on Tape remains the black sheep in HIM’s catalog. After mysteriously disappearing from streaming services around 2021, the record received vinyl and CD reissues in 2024, but they didn’t feel celebratory. It wasn’t a special anniversary release – just a repressing. General fan reaction is mixed. Some cite it as their favorite, while most agree it’s not their best. It’s still a hot topic amongst fans, prompting numerous Reddit threads about general thoughts and feelings about the record, but it’s rarely discussed outside of the fandom. It barely comes up when talking about the band’s legacy. That honor goes to Razorblade Romance, Love Metal, and late-period albums like Venus Doom. It’s a shame because the album isn’t awful, it’s just not HIM at their best.
Tears on Tape is still my least favorite HIM album, but revisiting it 13 years later helped me find some things to love about it. Some of the songs are really good and capture HIM’s edgier side (highly recommend “No Love”). The instrumentals are like old horror movie scores and hint at an exciting new sonic direction. Immersing myself in this era made me reflect on my journey with HIM. I grew up with them. I fell in love with them in high school. I wore my Heartagram pendant with pride throughout college. I still blast their songs while washing the dishes. Hell, I bring my “vintage” HIM bag to work with me every day. I love this band and miss them, but I respect their decision to break up. Tears on Tape was supposed to be an exciting new chapter for HIM. Instead, it was the beginning of the end that eventually brought to light a harsh truth: HIM was over. It’s a hard truth to accept, one that too many bands choose to ignore. Instead of phoning it in and continuing to release underwhelming albums, they bowed out gracefully, keeping their legacy intact. At least they gave it one more try before saying goodbye.