Lacuna Coil- Shallow Life
What happened here? Although I attempt to review every album objectively, I wouldn't be reviewing albums to begin with if I didn't love music, and thus have some bands that I consider to be my personal favorites. Lacuna Coil have been a personal favorite of mine ever since I became a metalhead many years ago. While their sound has contained of heavy metal, gothic rock, and alternative, Lacuna Coil have always been a creative and often under appreciated group that has stayed far ahead of their countless imitators. Led by the duel vocals of Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro, the former being one of the absolute best female singers in rock and metal, the pure and powerful vocals have been one of the group's strongest assets. Not here though. On Shallow Life both voices sound like they've gone through some "studio magic," and have become boring in the process. That's the first of many problems with Shallow Life. The biggest, however, is that there are hardly any strengths to overshadow the flaws. The opening track has a nice little intro to it, but that goes to waste once the actual song starts. Every single track sounds like a radio rock song. Maybe this album will be a hit with mainstream rock fans, but anyone who remembers the days of a creative, varied, beautiful, heavy, and powerful Lacuna Coil will be flat out angered by the atrocity of Shallow Life. It's doubtful that any fan of the band, even those who learned of them through the often criticized (but still solid) Karmacode, will be pleased with what Lacuna Coil has released. If you're a fan of mainstream rock, there might be something here that you'll like, but if you're Lacuna Coil fan I hope you don't mind that I'll put myself out of the misery of having to think about this album and end the review here by simply telling you to avoid this album at all costs unless you're a Lacuna Coil purist that has no other choice but to give it a try.
Grade: D
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