LACUNA COIL – Dark Adrenaline

LACUNA COIL - Dark Adrenaline
  • 3/10
    LACUNA COIL - Dark Adrenaline - 3/10
3/10

Summary

Century Media
Release date: January 23, 2012

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The famed Italian rockers Lacuna Coil have released their sixth full-length album, Dark Adrenaline. Critics have always had a difficult time nailing down Lacuna Coil to a specific genre. They have been praised at times for possessing a unique sound with fantastic songwriting. While those accolades may have held true early on in their career, as the years progressed, their music has regressively been toned down. The band released their arguably weakest album in 2009 with Shallow Life. Unfortunately, Dark Adrenaline is a carbon copy of Shallow Life — devoid of the quality and compassion that made Lacuna Coil an accomplished band early in their career.

Lacuna Coil once again teamed up with Pop-rock producer David Gilmore, who is famous for creating the early sounds of Linkin Park. Gilmore seems to be attempting to repeat history with Lacuna Coil; trying to make them sound very much like old Linkin Park. This principle also holds true for co-lead vocalist Andrea Ferro, who has always lacked diversity, but between Dark Adrenaline and Shallow Life it’s very difficult to discern his vocals from that of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington.

Even looking at Dark Adrenaline objectively without emphasizing comparison on their previous work — it still simply does not hold up. The songs on this album have little variety or apparent care. The compositions are very weak; the musicianship has no core strength and ultimately comes off as extremely unconvincing.

If there are any redeeming qualities to this album, there are exactly two tracks worth mentioning… perhaps the album’s only saving grace. The first being the song “End Of Time”, which is a simple, melancholy track and probably the most melodic of any track on this album. It does effectively showcase the passion within both vocalists, Christina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro — something so desperately needed on many of the other tracks. The other song that stands out, which isn’t even a Lacuna Coil composition, is the cover of R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion”. This track invokes an intense amount of emotion from the vocalists, and enables the listener to actually become completely fascinated for about 4 minutes.

Needless to say, Dark Adrenaline is a letdown for both core Lacuna Coil fans and passive listeners. Despite their advertising, this band is not evolving. They are taking many steps backward, and even though they may continue to be a huge success worldwide because of their mainstream sound, diehard Metal fans will not be fooled by this one.

Author

  • Sean Meloy

    Sean Meloy was a reviewer, interviewer and DJ here at Metal Express Radio, based out of Iowa , USA. By day he is a straight laced, buttoned up, number crunching accountant; armed with his portable calculator. All other times he is a hard rocking Metal head! He spent many hours listening to records and 8-tracks with his father. Classic bands such as Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Kansas, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton just to name a few. His father bought him his first record, Kiss Alive II, at age 6. By the time he reached his teens he was discovering all the Classic Metal of the 1980’s; Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Twisted Sister, etc. He became a huge fan of the Thrash Metal of the time as well; Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Exodus, and Overkill. During the 1990’s he experimented with the Grunge and Hard Rock. However, by the time the millennium came he found himself going back to his roots and rebuilt the music collection he started in his teens.

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