Lacuna Coil – Dark Adrenaline

“Dark Adrenaline” is the sixth album from Lacuna Coil

For anyone who’s been living in a cave somewhere for the last 15 years or so and doesnt know who Lacuna Coil are, they’re an Italian hard rock band with two vocalists, one male (Andrea Ferro) and one female (Cristina Scabbia).  They’ve released five albums and two EP’s to date, with Dark Adrenaline being the sixth album.  The more recent albums have received criticism from some fans as the band have moved towards a more mainstream American sound.

“Trip the darkness” is the first song on the album and is also the first single taken from the album.  Opening with a mandolin introduction, the song quickly kicks into high gear with lots of guitar and pounding drums.  Opening with Andrea Ferro’s vocals before Cristina Scabbia joins in, the song has plenty of power, with the lovely vocals of Cristina Scabbia balancing the raw power of the music beautifully.  Cristina’s voice despite having a lovely smooth sound, still has plenty of power as the chorus in particular demonstrates.  A great start to the album.

“Against you” is another great song – heavy and featuring some great guitar work.  For this song, Andrea handles most of the vocals.

“Losing my religion” is a cover of the song by REM.  Having had huge success when they covered the Depeche Mode song “Enjoy the silence”, it was perhaps inevitable that they’d do more covers.  This is an excellent cover – rather than doing a straight copy of the song, they’ve really given it a Lacuna Coil feel.

“My Spirit” is the last track on the album and while still recognisably Lacuna Coil, it does have a very different feel to it.  The track was written following the death of Type O Negative singer, Peter Steele, and is dedicated to him.  It’s a very emotional song lyric-wise and the music suits it perfectly.  There is also a nice guitar solo in the song.

With “Dark Adrenaline”, the band are likely to win back many of the fans who have criticised the recent albums – the new album is heavier than the last couple of albums, but manages to retain the commercially successful mainstream rock appeal of the recent albums, so they’ve really managed to get the best of both – heavy and commercial.

The album is being released in a variety of formats – vinyl, CD, mp3, as well as a CD/DVD package, as well as various packs with variations including an alternate cover.

“Dark Adrenaline” will be released on the 23rd January via Century Media.

Rating: 9/10

Track listing:

1. Trip the darkness
2. Against you
3. Kill the lights
4. Give me something more
5. Upside down
6. End of time
7. I don’t believe in tomorrow
8. Intoxicated
9. The army inside
10. Losing my religion
11. Fire
12. My spirit

 

About Ant May

I spend half my life at gigs or festivals and the other half writing the reviews and editing photos, and somehow find time for a full time job too. Who needs sleep - I've got coffee.