posted 05/14/2006 (Sun) @ 05:00 pm
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Lacuna Coil - Karmacode (2006)
Italians do it better
- Fragile
- To The Edge
- Our Truth
- Within Me
- Devoted
- You Create
- What I See
- Fragments Of Faith
- Closer
- In Visible Light
- The Game
- Without Fear
- Enjoy The Silence
It makes a weird kind of sense that an Italian band can sound cooler and more interesting in trying to sound “modern” than can most modern American bands trying to do the same. “Karmacode” is a new direction for this band, as the out-of-character cover art indicates, but also a natural progression. Perhaps it’s an attempt to shy away from inevitable ignorant comparisons to a group of charlatans from Arkansas who co-opted the Lacuna Coil sound for a suitably evanescent fame, but it’s also quite possibly the evolving songwriting talent of bassist Marco Coti-Zelati, seasoned with age and changing taste, which is responsible for the impressive and bewitching quality of this record.
With the sometimes ugly and amateurish electronica experimentation (”Aeon”) on “Comalies” under their belts, Lacuna Coil has emerged on “Karmacode” with a sound that more deftly incorporates the delicate with the thunderous, welding the best parts of dreamy lullabies like the Italian-sung “Senzafine” (from “Unleashed Memories”) to the punishing darkwave metal evinced on past tracks like “Swamped,” and in a style that speaks to their artisanship, whereas moments on their last disc could have been seen as gauche and awkward.
Singer Andrea Ferro has also learned how to scream a more listenable scream; in the past, his vocals were criticized for sounding incredibly out-of-place (and sometimes out-of-tune), but this is no longer the case, and some songs here (”Within Me”) are shocking in how good Ferro and Scabbia sound together.
As longtime fans have come to expect, Scabbia’s shimmering alto vibrato adorns songs like first single “Our Truth” and “Devoted” like sugar in napalm. Opener “Fragile,” on the other hand, sounds at first like a lost Korn track if someone finally chopped off Jonathan Davis’s untouchables, with Scabbia’s singing anchoring a death rattle bassline and the downtuned dirt guitars providing a murky undertow. Underneath it all, though, the sonic signature is vintage Lacuna Coil without a doubt. They’re coming into their own like metallic Beatles, with groovy Eastern-peppered guitar riffage (”Fragments of Faith”) leading the way. There’s also beautiful acoustic folk-flavored duets (”Within Me”), slow-burning quasi-orchestral haunts (”In Visible Light”), and at least one dreamy segue with phased vocals (”You Create”) that belie a newfound sense of album cohesion, and the realization that sharp edges seem sharper in contrast to silky, hypnotic melodies. Like they did to Dubstar’s “Stars,” Lacuna Coil put their own unique spin on the Depeche Mode track “Enjoy the Silence.” Though not quite as brilliant as the “Stars” cover, it’s still quite good, and indicative of the pop influence that steers Lacuna Coil just as much as forebears Paradise Lost and Type O Negative.
It’s bewildering beyond belief to be calling this Lacuna Coil’s best work to date, as it comes as supremely unexpected from a band that seemed content with a distinct and seemingly immutable style of songwriting, but one listen-through should be sufficient to convince the naysayers whose ears aren’t completely sewn shut yet. It’s the Lacuna Coil of old, with more breadth, more restraint, and in the end, some of the best songs of their career to date.
Tags: darkwave, female vocalists, metal, world
