LACUNA COIL – Karmacode

From the collaboration of Century Media and EMI Music comes Lacuna Coil’s fourth album Karmacode. Their 2002 album Comalies did set the standards high for this young Italian band, who won over millions of fans worldwide with hits like “Swamped.”

It’s easy to see that there has been put a lot of time and effort in making Karmacode as well. The album has thirteen songs and also includes a video of their first single, “Our Truth,” promo pictures, and a funny “on the road” movie.

Lacuna Coil has been compared to bands like Within Temptation, Evanescence, and even Nightwish. With Karmacode, they truly prove their point within this genre as a much better band. They both sound and look better, they don’t preach Christianity, and they don’t push the limits with opera and excessive keyboards. Instead, they have added massive guitar playing to rock up their tunes, and they have the best female voice nowadays in Cristina Scabbia, who also got voted one of the hottest Metal chicks around in the Rock magazine Revolver recently!

The second vocal is Andrea Ferro, who doesn’t have the same strength in his voice as his companion does. Whatever he lacks she has, though, so all together they make a perfect match. Karmacode is a tight album filled with lots of potential hits. The first seven songs get two thumbs up, and they all have that little extra. Either it’s the catchy chorus, the hard, deep bass playing, the Ofra Haza’ish background singing, or the good down to earth lyrics.

On the song “Without Fear,” they have chosen to sing in Italian, which makes this one of the most beautiful and powerful songs on the album.

Even if Lacuna Coil are most famous for their two lead singers, they have managed to get the rest of the band in the spotlight on this album as well. Both guitar players, Cristiano Migliore and Marco Biazzi, impress from the acoustic song “Within Me” to the more raw solos on “The Game.” Bass player Marco Coti Zelati is at his best on the more mainstream song “Closer,” which starts and ends with pure bass. Last but not least, there’s hard-hitting drummer Criz Mozzati, with his crazy Mohawk hairdoo.

“Cream of the Crop” is the last song; a cover version of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy The Silence” … one of the best songs in the world, with finally a worthy version that needs to be played out loud! If you don’t feel the drumming deep within, then you need to turn the volume up louder!

Lacuna Coil are currently touring the U.S.A with headliner Rob Zombie, but after Karmacode, Lacuna Coil should start looking for support bands for their next tour!