Venus Doom

In September 2006 the band cancelled the North American tour behind Dark Light to start work on new material. They went into Finnvox Studios in Helsinki in February 2007 with Hiili Hiilesmaa and Tim Palmer, both of whom they had worked with on Love Metal in 2003. After three months of recording, Palmer mixed it at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles and Ted Jensen mastered it at Sterling Sound in New York. Ville Valo was in trouble while it was being made. Exhaustion and the end of his engagement fed a worsening drinking problem, he was physically ill by the time of the sessions and he went into rehab afterwards. Much of the record's weight and most of its subject matter come from that, and the influence of My Dying Bride, Anathema and Paradise Lost has been heard in it. Valo described the album as more personal than anything before it, and as more organic and more violent. The cover is a painting by David Harouni that Valo bought in New Orleans while on tour. It had hung on his living-room wall the whole time he was writing, so using it seemed natural to him. "Passion's Killing Floor" went onto the soundtrack of the 2007 film Transformers. The album charted in thirteen countries and made the top ten in four, and it went gold in Finland. The running order here is the original release's as printed; the player on this page carries the deluxe edition, which adds two live recordings.