I'm not gay. Much.

I'm an enormous wimp. I'm absolutely terrified of the latest HIM album. I just can't listen to it.

HIM are one of my all-time favourite bands. I've seen them live shit loads of times, I spent about 6 months continuously listening to nothing other than Razorblade Romance and Love Metal, I'm convinced that I'll have The Sacrament played at my funeral and Hot Chick firmly believes I'm fully gay for Ville Valo. But all in the garden is rosy. I dutifully bought Venus Doom on release day in 2007 and was uninspired. It felt over-produced, weak, and didn't have any tunes with the raw passion of Razorblade Kiss or the seminal Buried Alive By Love.

So following on from this mild disappointment, I've been avoiding the latest album, Screamworks: Love In Theory & Practice since it's release as I don't want it to be the album that seals HIM's fate as a band passed their best. The couple of tracks I have heard are good but haven't erected me trouserly. However, as this week saw me celebrating the day of my birth, Bro Dude procured Screamworks... for me and insisted I give it a listen.

I haven't yet. I'm just too scared. After the recent abomination that was Throwdown's Deathless, I'm not sure my delicate psyche can take another blow.

Anyway, my mate Melvin has been preaching the gospel about US duo Cobalt for ages now. The band haven't been on my radar but he swears that Gin is one of the best black metal albums of 2009. It's a bold claim Melv (Behemoth's Evangelion might have a shot at that title) but I shall be digesting it with a critical ear imminently.

To finish on a tangent, well done to everyone in the UK who voted in the general election. It looks as if the bloody Tories are going to get in but nevertheless, if you went out and put your "x" in a box for any political party, good on you.

Right, I'm off to deposit last night's ale excess into David Cameron's pricey loafers.

Snogs,

M
\m/