Biography

Line-up:
Cristina Scabbia: vocals
Andrea Ferro: vocals
Cristiano Migliore: guitar
Marco Biazzi: guitar
Marco Coti Zelati: bass
Cristiano Mozzati: drums

Here it is: the third album of the band from Milan. Comalies, the mystical third album in a band's career which divides quickly dying starlets from real artists in the Olympus of music. Make it or break it... Of course, statistically there are as many debut or second albums also heralded as classics, but the third album has a certain mystique which becomes evident when you look at it from an artist's perspective. Granted: they could seek the chance to present themselves as a grown-up band. Probably they will even murmur something about having become mature in their interviews. But let's
be honest: the real chance Lacuna Coil have with Comalies is to carry their music beyond the hype as a very promising newcomer but also free themselves from excessive expectations of their audience.

And so the band, around singers Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro, took precisely this chance. Instead of clinging to the sound that brought them the first positive reactions of the fans the Italians develop something in their atmospheric metal that is hard to be found in this genre: elegance. The
duets between Cristina's uncomparable, powerful voice and Andrea Ferro's more and more charismatic sonorous voice are the centre of their gripping attacks to the audience's auditory nerves and fit into the dramaturgy of the compositions in a clever way. There is a nearly insidious jovialty in them:
concise guitars push the powerful metal parts forward while the subtly used keyboard parts and the accentuated acoustic guitars help to modulate the atmospheric highlights.

For want of any better term, Lacuna Coil are often classified as Gothic Metal which insufficiently describes their emotional essence. Normally coming along as melodramatic picture puzzle with Lacuna Coil it radiates a diversity that can have its origin only in lived life. For that reason despite all the tonal gloom their music radiates a special kind of joy- joy that will only be created if you orientate your music by the character of your personality, not trying to create a dreamworld in which you can be the person that you always wanted to be (but never were).

Comalies doesn't ask for liking by offering the listener a place of escape from his own life but is likeable for making the emotional ups and downs, the grandeur and despair of all human existence cognizable. In the music of Lacuna Coil the range of being human is audible. The perfection of this album is not found in the spectacular moments but in its wide range developing from very catchy, seemingly vulnerable melodies to powerful refrains opening up in the ear and sensitively dispensed, stylistically variable implemented thrusts of harshness.

With this album Lacuna Coil erect an altar for the good song. It was built in the temple of sound of Woodhouse Studios in Hagen under the technical supervision of Waldemar Sorychta with whom the Italians have formed a long-term, perfected artistic smybiosis. All we can do is to grant our appropriate deference to him.

Robert Müller, July 2002
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