Century Media

Lacuna Coil is one of those bands that on a technical level I like, even though I only love one of their albums, being Comalies in this case. That album struck a perfect balance with the band's gothic tinged sound with an infectious pop sensibility that none of their other albums really have come close to in my opinion. Shallow Life, the band's latest release, comes close to the peak that Comalies rests on, but on the other hand it further demonstrates the band's mainstream aspirations.

Compared directly to Karmacode, Shallow Life is a shiny diamond. The album boasts a cleaner production and superior songwriting over its predecessor. The album doesn't really have any surprises hiding under the surface however, the songs are all pretty simple and straight forward in execution. This, I feel, is its biggest shortcoming. In other words, Lacuna Coil just plays it safe. This isn't too much of a strike against the band, its not like they've ever pretended to be much else. But at the same time, the songs really lack the inventiveness that was so pervasive before and its hard not to feel that the band isn't utilizing all of its strengths.

At the very least the biggest strength the band does have, one Cristina Scabbia, is used properly. On Karmacode her vocals were buried in the mix instead of being center stage, but this time the same mistake was thankfully not made. On the flip side, Andrea Ferro was thankfully pushed back a bit more into the background. He's not a bad vocalist by any means, but no one listens to a Lacuna Coil album because of him. He's perfectly suited in a back-up role behind Cristina and that's a great place to be in my book.

*rimshot*

Ahem...anyway...

There's not much else to say. Those unfamiliar to the band would be better directed to Comalies, but you wouldn't be steered wrong with Shallow Life in any case.


01. Survive
02. I Won't Tell You
03. Not Enough
04. I'm Not Afraid
05. I Like It
06. Underdog
07. The Pain
08. Spellbound
09. Wide Awake
10. The Maze
11. Unchained
12. Shallow Life

Score: 7/10