HIM: ‘XX – Two Decades Of Love Metal’ Cover Artwork Unveiled

Finnish love metallers HIM will release a greatest-hits album, “XX – Two Decades Of Love Metal”, on October 29 via Sony Music in Finland. The set will include the band’s new cover version of the song “Strange World”, originally recorded in the 1990s by Kevin Grivois a.k.a. Ké.

The “Strange World” video and digital single is tentatively due on September 21.

H.I.M. is scheduled to enter the studio in early September with producer Hiili Hiilesmaa (APOCALYPTICA, AMORPHIS, MOONSPELL) to begin recording its ninth full-length album, “Tears On Tape”, for an early 2013 release. The CD will be mixed by Tim Palmer, who has previously worked with PEARL JAM, U2 and ROBERT PLANT, among many others.

H.I.M. will end this year by bringing back the Helldone Festival at club Tavastia in Helsinki, where they will perform for four nights in a row.

“XX – Two Decades Of Love Metal” track listing:

01. Strange World (KÉ cover)
02. Join Me In Death,
03. Heartkiller
04. Rip Out The Wings Of A Butterfly
05. The Kiss Of Dawn (radio edit)
06. The Funeral Of Hearts (radio edit)
07. Right Here In My Arms (radio edit)
08. Pretending
09. Buried Alive By Love (radio edit)
10. Gone With The Sin
11. Your Sweet Six Six Six
12. The Sacrament (radio edit)
13. Wicked Game (CHRIS ISAAK cover)
14. Killing Loneliness
15. Bleed Well (radio edit)
16. In Joy And Sorrow (radio edit)
17. Poison Girl
18. Scared To Death
19. When Love And Death Embrace (radio edit)
20. Heartache Every Moment

The “XX – Two Decades Of Love Metal” cover artwork can be seen below.

In March of last year, HIM parted ways with Sire/Warner Music following a six-year partnership that produced three albums. HIM frontman Ville Valo told Kerrang! magazine in February, “The thing with Warner is really a kind of a familiar story. When we signed with [the label], there were lots of people there who really loved the band, loved what we were doing; people who worked hard for us and who really had our best interests at heart. And now, of course, all of those people have left the company. So instead we had a bunch of people that we didn’t know, who didn’t know us, and who we felt didn’t really understand what we are about and how to best represent us. All of a sudden, it felt like we didn’t have a home anymore. It was time for us to move on.”

HIM‘s discography on Sire includes the 2005 album “Dark Light”, which was certified gold in the U.S. for sales in excess of 500,000 copies. Follow-up releases “Venus Doom” (2007) and “Screamworks: Love In Theory And Practice” charted both in the U.S. and Europe.

“Screamworks: Love In Theory And Practice” sold 26,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 25 on The Billboard 200 chart.