Review Tuesday: LACUNA COIL

In January of this year LACUNA COIL put out their latest record: DARK ADRENALINE. I was looking forward to the new album as it usually brings a new tour. Color me enthused!

The record DARK ADRENALINE hit in January of 2012, and the first single was TRIP THE DARKNESS. I wasn't feeling it. Something wasn't right, but I waited for the full album to make any decisions. When I did, I had a feeling something wasn't right. It was a Lacuna Coil album that didn't have that Lacuna Coil feel to it, to me. It feels a bit overproduced, and Cristina Scabbia's creamy, sexy voice seemed tweaked a couple octaves higher than usual on some tracks. They, also, half-heartedly cover REM's Losing My Religion.

The tracklist:

Song Title - Time

1. Trip The Darkness 3:13

2. Against You 3:50

3. Kill The Light 3:34

4. Give Me Something More 3:55

5. Upsidedown 3:03

6. End Of Time 3:52

7. I Don't Believe In Tomorrow 4:11

8. Intoxicated 3:47

9. The Army Inside 3:12

10. Losing My Religion 3:42

11. Fire 2:54

12. My Spirit 5:49

I would call this record a mixed bag. Some good, some not so good, mostly okay. It's very listenable, but not their greatest effort.

But take this on the road, and we have another story. Lacuna Coil is celebrating 15 years of making music and on their headlining tour are playing about two hours of music going to the very earliest recordings, right up through DARK ADRENALINE. They even slow it down with a 15 minute acoustic set in the middle of the show.

Allow me to digress a moment. When we saw them at the Grammercy Theater in NYC, the opening act was OTHERWISE. I would call Otherwise a heavy metal band with about nothing to distinguish itself from any of the others. They cursed out some dude in the crowd through their entire set. They were completely distracted with putting up a very heavy metal image, but they lost my interest. Play some good music, lower your levels a little bit, and have a slice of humble pie guys. I'd call them okay at best.

Back to Lacuna Coil. They played most of their greatest songs for 2 hours and from the beginning to the end, they sounded great. Perfect levels. They weren't intentionally trying to blow out your eardrums. I frequently feel like some bands crank it up just to hide the fact that they aren't that good, the loud muddy noise blaring from the speakers can be unintelligible. Lacuna Coil does NOT fall into this pit. Andrea and Cristina both sang in perfect form. The rest of the band was tight and together. Speaking of tight, Cristina looks AMAZING. She's hot just because she's an awesome singer, but she looked amazing, and wore some sexy see through spandex pants. She also had a couple costume changes, thought nothing crazy.

I must admit, they did several songs from the new album and they sounded GREAT on stage. The raw sound or not being overly polished made them better. They didn't play anything that was a disappointment.

If you weren't sure whether to see them or not, I say GO FOR IT! They are a great live band that really seems to enjoy being on stage performing for the fans. And Cristina Scabbia is HOT!