Band:	HIM
Album:	Love Metal Archives Vol. 1
Style:	Suomi metal
Release date:	2005
Guest review by:	iaberis

Disc I
01. And Love Said No
02. Buried Alive By Love
03. Gone With The Sin
04. Heartache Every Moment
05. In Joy And Sorrow
06. Join Me
07. Pretending
08. Right Here In My Arms
09. Solitary Man
10. The Funeral Of Hearts
11. The Sacrament
12. When Love And Death Embrace
13. Wicked Game [Germany version]
14. Wicked Game [Helsinki version]
15. Wicked Game [UK version]

Disc II
01. HIM vs BAM
02. Bonus material

I've always been fan of music videos, since apart from the great music you can see the band, too. I like these kind of releases, where you can take a band's DVD with all their official videos in just one album. More and more bands follow this trend, giving their fans new material and also gaining more resources. Even if I'm not a fan of a particular band, I always take their video collection DVD, since most bands express their feelings and ideas with them. You can actually see the world through the band's perspective.

So, when I saw the Love Metal Archives Vol. 1 I was one of the first that went to acquire it. It's a double DVD release with the first disc having fifteen of their music videos and twenty five more from various live concerts from their tours around the world. The second disc is more like a bonus disc with material like "behind the scenes" of some of the music videos from the first disc and some interviews. There's also a kind of documentary called HIM vs BAM with "Jackass" star Bam Margera, which is, by the way, a good friend of Ville Valo.

Like I said, the first disc is the main reason I took this release. There's not actually a track list for this disc since all clips are featured in alphabetical order. This disc has all the band's music videos, except those which were released after this album, of course. Among the well-known by videos there are some rare versions which weren't released in wide scale before. An example is the three versions of the song Wicked Game which has three versions of the same song in different performances; all of them are great. There's also a version of Heartache Every Moment with Bam Margera's video footage.

The interface of the disc is very good, with easy options. The quality of the image is very good too, as usual in a DVD release. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about the sound. In some clips the sound is acceptable but in most of them the volume is extremely low. This causes problems when you go from one track to another because these ups and downs keep you with the hand on the volume tuner to avoid sudden changes in the sound. It's truly unacceptable for an official release to have such a production. Although some clips are old, they could easily re-master their sound instead of just improving their image. I don't know whether the record label or the producer is responsible for this but it's a great sign of unprofessionalism and sleaziness. I can't actually believe how this album got released in the first place? isn't there any quality standards? Isn't there any control during the production?

Well, if you are a fan and collect every band's release, buy this album, else avoid this and save your nerves! Apart from the sound, the material in this album is great. It could have been one of my favorites, but no thanks!