Review of the Album "Shallow Life" by Italian Heavy Metal Band Lacuna Coil

"Shallow Life" is the 5^th full length album by Milan Italy heavy metal band Lacuna Coil. The desire to review this album came when I just knew that I had to do it. I Won’t Tell You is the first notable song on this album that I heard and it is really groovy! However, the first song Survive sets the tone for what is another heavy guitar sound. The song is about being lost in a crowd of millions of people not knowing what to say or do. I Won’t Tell You is a song about someone who knows they are living in a world full of lies, yet they are thriving in this world of theirs and they still play with fire even though it hurts them. When someone is literally falling apart and their love is a lie, some people don't want to let that person know about it for a variety of reasons. The phrase "sometimes the truth hurts" applies to this song.

However, the power and melody in Cristina Scabbia’s voice is still there even in 2009 which was more than 12 years ago. There is a definite Paradise Lost influence in the song Not Enough. The song called I’m Not Afraid is about a person that is determined to take others down to live life the way that they want to live it. The song called “I Like It” lyrically is similar to the song before it in the sense that it is about someone that is determined to celebrate their life and do what they enjoy until the day they die. They are free to fly into the sky like a bird. That’s one of the reasons I’m writing this review. Lacuna Coil’s music is high energy and of course, Cristina Scabbia has proven that she is worthy of admiration, love, and respect for the outstanding job she has done since 1997!

However, by this time in the band’s career, we see more of a contributing role by male vocalist Andrea Ferro especially in the song called The Maze. The song is about running frantically through the maze of life. Life can be so destructive at times that we wonder how we are able to hang in there. It feels like we are running through halls of emptiness. The musical quality of Shallow Life combines a bit of the band’s older albums while putting on a heavier, more modern touch. Since 1999’s In a Reverie, Lacuna Coil has changed from a mostly Gothic rock band with lighter guitar sound to a more modern, heavier, crunchier guitar sound.

Spellbound is a song about someone that feels like they are haunted yet they are determined to wrestle themselves from this spell that they have been put under. The ballad song called Wide Awake is about a person that felt “boxed in” because of the limits that they set on themselves. They have awakened to a blue sky and they know that they really cherish and treasure their life. The true freedom begins when we get ourselves out of that cage that we built as the song says. Getting out of our comfort zone is one of the toughest things to do however. The song Shallow Life has piano, orchestration, and Cristina’s voice which is pure, audible, and high enough to be considered elite.

How good of an album is Shallow Life? It is better than 2002’s Comalies because this album does not really have songs that could be considered filler. And even though this album does not have a song as good as Self-Deception or Unspoken it is still a better album than Comalies. It may be even slightly better than Karmacode. However, Lacuna Coil still has not been able to top the greatness that they achieved in the early part of the 2000’s.

Even so, they have proven to me that they can evolve as a group and still be good. Survive is a song that basically could say that Lacuna Coil has endured lineup changes, style changes, and retirements of a few of its members and they are still active as of 2019 going into 2020! Andrea Ferro provides good male back-up vocals in this first song. In the song called Not Enough, Cristina still shows that she has power and passion in her voice. Those of you that feel the need to really criticize Lacuna Coil for being sell-outs or some other word, just remember that they have changed and sometimes you have to change musically in order to grow and evolve as a group. The beats in the song might sound kind of like Depeche Mode but the song still fits. “I’m Not Afraid” is a song that sounds like a modern Theatre of Tragedy only better.