#84 - Lacuna Coil

Lacuna Coil is my second band featuring a female vocalist (Nightwish was the first, and I'm not counting Sceptic, since I only know their pre-Weronika Zbieg stuff), and I think my only representation from Italy.  Frontwoman Christina Scabbia, who by the way is just four days younger than me, shares vocal duties with growler Andrea Ferro, but make no mistake... all eyes (and ears I guess) are on her.  I picked up their sort of gothic metal debut album in Italy in 2001 when I was on this kick where I was trying to get an album from a national band every time I traveled to another country.  The album was released in 1998 and they were actually doing quite well in Europe although nobody had really heard of them in the States.  (Of course not, when there was so much Destiny's Child to be listened to.)  I remember overhearing an argument a couple years later where someone was criticizing Lacuna Coil as an Evanescence knockoff; ironic since their debut album predates that of Evanescence by a good five years.  They just hit in America around the same time.  I got a chance to see them at Ozzfest in 2004, where they played at 9:00am on the second stage!!  Last year, their sixth album, Dark Adrenaline, peaked at number 15 in the States.  I guess they've come a ways.

"To Myself I Turned" is the first song I heard by Lacuna Coil.  I was looking for metal bands with female vocalists, something there is not nearly enough of - not surprising, I suppose, given the traditionally geeky-teenage-boy aesthetic of the genre - when I happened on a pretty comprehensive list on the subject online.  That search led me to some pretty sketchy bands, but this song hooked me immediately.  The band plays, while not particularly prodigiously, with good precision and Christina's vocals are powerful and emotive, with solid tone and pitch.  I also like the shifts between soft and heavy in this song, and especially the interesting chord progression in the chorus (first reached at 1:00).  It's no I-IV-V-I progression.  (In fact it's i-VII-#3sus-4sus-2sus-V-i I think.)  Actually, the progressions throughout are pretty unusual for a rock song.  And the melodies flow pretty naturally in spite of that.  Check it out and see if you don't agree.