Departure Song
$ $ hey hey
You never know quite what to expect when you listen to a Lacuna Coil album for the first time. Their past endeavors (most notably 2002's Comalies) have brought them a large following and made them one of the only European gothic metal bands to have any success in the United States. With their latest release, Shallow Life, it seems the Italian sextet—whose name means “empty spiral”—can only spiral one way: downwards.
If you haven't already heard, you deserve to know that the producer of this album is a man named Don Gilmore. Metalheads may not know this name, and with good reason: he's the producer that gave us gems like Linkin Park, Avril Lavigne, and Good Charlotte. Yes, this does mean that this album follows in Karmacode's footsteps. It is radio-friendly, run-of-the-mill modern rock that just about any amateur band can emulate.
And unlike Karmacode, it's not really enjoyable.
Okay, so there are some positive aspects—tracks like “Not Enough” and the lead single “Spellbound” show off some of the band's catchiest hooks yet and even have some degree of artistic merit. But once you listen to the album opener “Survive” or uninspired filler like “I Like It” and “The Maze,” the most prominent problem will strike you immediately.
Lacuna Coil doesn't really give a damn anymore. They're more than capable of producing decent music, but Shallow Life revolves entirely around chasing mainstream appeal. Hot Topic scene kids will eat this release right up, and that's exactly what the band set out to do. The musicians in Lacuna Coil are all very talented, but it just doesn't matter when everything is polished to the point of becoming intolerable. Many reviewers compare this release to Linkin Park's music, and such a comparison could not be more valid.
Surely, though, there are some redeeming qualities, right? Lacuna Coil, the band that gave us gothic metal gems like Comalies and In a Reverie can't make a completely terrible album, right? Well, no, they can't.
Cristina Scabbia still deserves all the praise in the world for her vocal work. In a genre full of classically-trained soprano vocalists, hearing a female with attitude is refreshing and very much welcome. She definitely knows how to rock out, and her singing in the ballad “Wide Awake” could not sound more divine. She really deserves more than what this band is providing her.
When talking about the album, Scabbia said this: “The most amazing this is, we've been able to improve everything about Lacuna Coil without taking away anything good or doing something that doesn't belong.”
Well... hate to break it to you, Cristina, but the band's biggest flaw is still prominent and has been since the conception of the band.
Andrea Ferro is still singing. He's in most of the songs on this album, and he even has a few songs all to himself.
Pardon my French, but what the fuck? I'm sorry, but absolutely no respectable musician could ever think that this man should be singing. He has no emotion, no vocal strength, nothing. No redeemable qualities at all. He's out-of-tune, can't pronounce simple English words to save his life, and actually manages to make Cristina's voice sound bad when they sing together. Either this guy is threatening to kill the rest of the band if they don't include him, or they feel really bad for him and don't want to make him upset by taking him away from the mic. That's all I can think of. Not even the pop radio stations they're trying to cater to will be able to stand this garbage.
I wouldn't recommend Shallow Life to anyone at all. There are a few redeeming qualities—Cristina's vocals, “Spellbound”, “Not Enough”, and “Wide Awake” among them—but this is nothing compared to the consistently awful quality in the rest of the album.
If you haven't already heard, you deserve to know that the producer of this album is a man named Don Gilmore. Metalheads may not know this name, and with good reason: he's the producer that gave us gems like Linkin Park, Avril Lavigne, and Good Charlotte. Yes, this does mean that this album follows in Karmacode's footsteps. It is radio-friendly, run-of-the-mill modern rock that just about any amateur band can emulate.
And unlike Karmacode, it's not really enjoyable.
Okay, so there are some positive aspects—tracks like “Not Enough” and the lead single “Spellbound” show off some of the band's catchiest hooks yet and even have some degree of artistic merit. But once you listen to the album opener “Survive” or uninspired filler like “I Like It” and “The Maze,” the most prominent problem will strike you immediately.
Lacuna Coil doesn't really give a damn anymore. They're more than capable of producing decent music, but Shallow Life revolves entirely around chasing mainstream appeal. Hot Topic scene kids will eat this release right up, and that's exactly what the band set out to do. The musicians in Lacuna Coil are all very talented, but it just doesn't matter when everything is polished to the point of becoming intolerable. Many reviewers compare this release to Linkin Park's music, and such a comparison could not be more valid.
Surely, though, there are some redeeming qualities, right? Lacuna Coil, the band that gave us gothic metal gems like Comalies and In a Reverie can't make a completely terrible album, right? Well, no, they can't.
Cristina Scabbia still deserves all the praise in the world for her vocal work. In a genre full of classically-trained soprano vocalists, hearing a female with attitude is refreshing and very much welcome. She definitely knows how to rock out, and her singing in the ballad “Wide Awake” could not sound more divine. She really deserves more than what this band is providing her.
When talking about the album, Scabbia said this: “The most amazing this is, we've been able to improve everything about Lacuna Coil without taking away anything good or doing something that doesn't belong.”
Well... hate to break it to you, Cristina, but the band's biggest flaw is still prominent and has been since the conception of the band.
Andrea Ferro is still singing. He's in most of the songs on this album, and he even has a few songs all to himself.
Pardon my French, but what the fuck? I'm sorry, but absolutely no respectable musician could ever think that this man should be singing. He has no emotion, no vocal strength, nothing. No redeemable qualities at all. He's out-of-tune, can't pronounce simple English words to save his life, and actually manages to make Cristina's voice sound bad when they sing together. Either this guy is threatening to kill the rest of the band if they don't include him, or they feel really bad for him and don't want to make him upset by taking him away from the mic. That's all I can think of. Not even the pop radio stations they're trying to cater to will be able to stand this garbage.
I wouldn't recommend Shallow Life to anyone at all. There are a few redeeming qualities—Cristina's vocals, “Spellbound”, “Not Enough”, and “Wide Awake” among them—but this is nothing compared to the consistently awful quality in the rest of the album.
