Razorblade Romance by HIM

Razorblade Romance, HIM's second studio album, is where the Helsinki band sanded down the rough edges and found the hooks. The first sessions, with Hiili Hiilesmaa, who had produced their 1997 debut, went nowhere, so they brought in John Fryer and decamped to Rockfield Studios in Wales. What came out is sleeker and far more melodic: Ville Valo crooning his doom-struck love songs over Mikko Lindström's guitar and Mige Paananen's bass, with Juska Salminen on keyboards for his only HIM album and Mika "Gas Lipstick" Karppinen making his debut on drums.

"Join Me in Death" was the breakthrough, a number one in Finland and Germany that also landed on the soundtrack of The Thirteenth Floor, and the album topped the charts in Finland, Germany and Austria. Critics liked the songs more than the gloss. The tour that followed nearly split the band, and in 2004 it became their first album to chart in the US.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.