MetalSucks

So Blabbermouth posted this live footage of Lacuna Coil performing at the Graspop Metal Meeting in Belgium a few weeks back. I clicked, figuring I’d at least get to oggle at Cristina Scabbia; the one-camera shoot meant this ended up not being the case, but I at least got to hear her very sexy voice… and male vocalist Andrea Ferro’s vocal diarrhea.

True, soundboard recordings are always a mixed bag; you hear each instrument clearly, but you don’t necessarily hear them the way they sounded live because house engineers mix to the sound of the venue, not through headphones. But Ferro’s performance is just undeniably, horrifyingly god awful. “Spellbound” starts off innocently enough with the instrumental intro, after which Ferro takes a stab at his first verse. I don’t think it’s possible for him to sound any worse; I mean, it’s like… just BAD. How is this guy still in the band? And to make matters worse, Cristina Scabbia follows him with a chorus that sounds practically perfect, arresting as always, as if to say “This guy sucks so bad, doesn’t he?”

-VN

Lacuna Coil makes it easy for haters. For one thing, their latest (and best) album ostensibly explores the meaninglessness of modern life, yet Shallow Life itself is immediate, thoughtless pop. Luckily, it’s awesome pop, to be enjoyed in the same disposable way as Doritos and Indiana Jones: as good, pointless fun. And though it suffers for its lack of depth, most of the Shallow Life experience is awesome hookery bolstered by Don Gilmore’s micro-tuned (post-)production. Arrangements are mercilessly utilitarian, with very few intros or outros or reps. At first, the record’s swift economy of riffage kinda feels like abridgement, like Reader’s Digest’s Shallow Life. But it’s soon clear that the brevity is basically a mercy killing, cuz, if you recall, guitarists Cristiano Migliore and Marco Biazzi played like vaginas on 2006’s otherwise awesome Karmacode. Those two either needed to get a style, or be banished to the background with (snicker) the keyboard player – and they are on Shallow Life. Out of convenience if not necessity, Gilmore’s Lacuna Coil is no longer a guitar band, but a pop band with heavy guitars, like Paramore, Garbage, and In Flames.

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