In the studio THE GREAT DEPRESSION

Ville Valo coudn't be more bummed out about how good HIM's forthcoming album promises to be.

"I've been having thes meltdowns like never before" says HIM's Ville Valo. The finnish frontman is on the phone from Finnvox studios in Helsinki, where the band is tracking the followup to 2005's Dark Light, tentaively titled "Venus Doom". "When an album is on it's way, its always something. Last time, I had these panic attacks, and this time around I've been going through severe depression. The albums sounding great, and we're having a great time while doing it, but I'm really having a hard time."

The band (which also includes guitarist Linde Lindstrom, bassist Mige', drummer Gas, and keyboardist Burton) is once again working with Dark Light producer Tim Palmer, with coproduction and engineering help from Hiili Hiilesmaa, who produced 2003's Love Metal. "When you have two guys that know the band real well, everything goes alot faster," says Valo. "And it's been nice for the band to record at home, because everyone can sleep in their own bed until the touring thing starts." So, what, then, is the problem? "Oh, I don't fucking know." Valo laughs. "You prepare the songs and you work on lyrics for maybe years before you get to actually hear them played by the band, and then it's such an emotional thing that goes on when that happens-it's like you 've got to destroy something beautiful to rebuild something even more beautiful. It's devastating to me, but it's devastating to me in a peculiarly beautiful way. It's like Edvard Munch's The Scream-but with pastel colors."

Never one to shy away from wearing his vampire heart on his sleeve, Valo says his lyrics for Venus Doom (which, like Dark Light, will be released on Sire Records) are more personal than ever., including a song for a friend who commited suicide two years ago. "Sometimes, when you write lyrics, you think you're writing them about somebody else," he explains. "But all of a sudden, when you read them again, you're like, Fucking hell, they're about me! That's kind of weird, and that's been happening alot lately."

Still, Valo assures Revolver that he hasn't lost his macrabre sense of humor. "It's all still tongue in cheek, to a certain extent," he says. "You can't take yourself too seriously-or way too seriously, you know? There's a fine line. My favorite is the song 'Passions Killing Floor.' The first line is 'My hearts a graveyard baby!' And there is a song called 'Dead Lovers Lane': 'Crawl down dead lovers lane/The maze of memories stained/And suck the blood out of my heart.' Stuff like that. So, Im still the depressed fucking gloomy motherfucker that I always was." he laughs.

Valo previously told Revolver that Venus Doom would sound like Blsck Sabbath meets Nineties shoegazers My Bloody Valentine, and the singer still stands by the description.

"Or U2 meeting Kyuss," he offers. "It's still very melodic-the keyboards are super-gay-very Depeche Mode, very Eighties-but everything else is super-fucking heavy. At times, it sounds like Master of Puppets-era Metallica, which is really cool. It sounds kind of macho, which is nice. So it's kind of like a she-male record."

Venus Doom, which wil be mixed by Palmer and Valo at L.A.'s Paramount Recording, is slated for a July 10 release.

"We're trying to be fast," says Valo. "We're trying to be like the Seventies, when Whitesnake and everybody were doing three albums a year."
Wait, did you just say Whitesnake? "I love Whitesnake! David Coverdale is my fucking hero!," Valo exults. "Though our brand of cock rock is a little more subtle. We are very sensitive on that side," he chuckles. "We do 'slide it in' occasionally-but only if she says so."