Album Review: Lacuna Coil - "Sleepless Empire"

Every time there’s a new Lacuna Coil album, I think back to the very first lyrical line of the very first track from 2014’s “Broken Crown Halo,” the anthemic and powerful single “Nothing Stands in Our Way”:

We’re still struggling / halfway through this journey.

Now, I don’t think that lyric was meant to be taken literally, but the second half of that line is worthy of some examination.  Dated back to their first EP, Lacuna Coil had been a going concern for sixteen years at the time of “Broken Crown Halo,” and it’s been eleven years since that remark was recorded.

That’s not to say that anyone believes Lacuna Coil has only five or so years left, far from it.  They can go as long as they feel compelled to do so.  It does, however, serve as a benchmark reminder of how far the band has come, and gives perspective to where they may see themselves now and in the future.

Which all serves as a backdrop to the following question that has plagued Lacuna Coil for years, and will not be abated by their new album “Sleepless Empire”: what band does Lacuna Coil want to be?  (In defense of the band, their sole answer to this question should rightfully be “whatever damn band we want.” I ask the question only as a means to frame how I believe the oft-conflicted and occasionally argumentative Lacuna Coil-imbibing public will react to this record.)

There have been multiple answers to this question over the decades, as the band transitioned through multiple phases of their identity.  The began as the revolutionary progenitors of what has since become known as ‘beauty-and-the-beast metal’ (a silly epithet, but one that seems entrenched now,) transitioned through to being something of a commercial pop metal band with a growling backup singer, and then into their third personality as an emotional and ragged metal storm, culminating in the masterpiece album  “Delirium.”  

Ultimately, the answer to that question that “Sleepless Empire” provides is that Lacuna Coil is all three of those bands in their turn, and the band is confident enough and experienced enough to be able to deftly balance all those elements into something that flows with purpose for the duration of an album.

Three of the first four cuts on this new record illustrate that very point - the opener, “The Siege” brings to mind the days of the persistent beat of “Shallow Life,” followed by the powerfully discordant “Oxygen,” a song with a hammering pulse but also a vaulted, accessible chorus, and then skip one down to “Scarecrow” and hear a song that lives somewhere in the valley between the other two.

Ah, but then the listener gets to “Gravity,” and hears for the first time a song that Lacuna Coil might not have been able to write eleven years ago.  It’s the first and most genuine synthesis of all their career phases that grace “Sleepless Empire.”  A mid-tempo, minor-keyed singalong rich with drama and heavy on power, the song is the amalgam of “Heaven’s a Lie,” “Cybersleep” and “Take Me Home.”  Spoiler, it is the album’s best triumph, the song that is most capable of tearing away the short attention span of the modern listener, that they may be consumed with the sound.

Don’t let it be sold short, though - “Sleepless Empire” brings more to the table than the single song.  Directly after “Gravity” is the wide open and almost bouncy “I Wish You Were Dead,” a song not presented with the dire tones that the title would suggest.  By contrast to what we’ve talked about to this point, “I Wish You Were Dead” is airy and light and breezy, brimming with the sort of retro-’80s goth rock beat that’s been made very fashionable by bands like Lord of the Lost.

Before we tarry too long, there’s one more song worth mentioning - “In Nomine Patris,” which rumbles with the kind of straight-ahead pummeling that so characterized “Broken Crown Halo,” which only merits mention since that’s how we started this whole conversation.

There is an inimitable truth to Lacuna Coil, which is that they’ve always been a singles band.  Each album has two or three outstanding songs, and whatever remains ranges from forgettably average to pleasantly good.  “Sleepless Empire” has some of those same hallmarks - not every song is going to hit.  However, by virtue of its versatility and reflection of the band’s entire career to this point, this may be the first Lacuna Coil album where different singles will hit for different people.  Time will tell.

Twenty-seven years into what the band loosely predicted would be a thirty-two year career, we see Lacuna Coil at a crossroads stylistically, but rather than be paralyzed by choice, they’ve chosen the most difficult but most rewarding road; the attempt to be all those choices at once.  A less experienced, less confident band could not have made “Sleepless Empire” into the success it is.