Blistering was off by four years in its prediction that Lacuna Coil would have its “return to form” album by 2016. This claim was made after 2009’s near-disastrous Shallow Life, an effort that saw the Italians abandon their metal roots in order to perhaps find a bigger audience with the alt/rockEvanescence
crowd. And like so many bands before them (Paradise Lost, Tiamat, Moonspell, and Entombed), they’re back to their guitar-heavy foundation on their sixth album, Dark Adrenaline. Nostradamus we are not…clearly.
Essentially an extension of their 2002 Comalies album, Dark Adrenaline pumps out the band’s meaty, yet accessible brand of poppy Goth metal/rock. The degree of immediacy in which these songs function was probably the right way to go, for there’s a wide platform for booming choruses and swift hooks, especially from vocal siren Cristina Scabbia. Scabbia, who often has to split alittle too much of the vocal duties with male singer Andrea Ferro, has her fair share of shining moments, including lead single “Trip the Darkness,” the throbbing “Give Me Something More,” and “I Don’t Believe In Tomorrow,” a song that might be the most direct nod to their early 00’s output.
Aside from the band’s ineffectual cover of R.E.M’s “Losing My Religion,” Dark Adrenaline doesn’t come close to rubbing one of the wrong way. Thanks to the uptick in guitars and heavier moods, along with Scabbia’s brief and all-too fleeting moments of glory (we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention “Upsidedown” as another gem of a song), Dark Adrenaline puts the band back on the fast track to respectability once again. Should the band decide to take another plunge into the cesspool of alt-rock again, then it’s really over. For now, they’re in the clear.
(This content originally appeared on Blistering.com)