There’s a moment, nearly three tracks into Italian gothic metal band Lacuna Coil’s latest release, Sleepless Empire, when you begin to understand what you're getting yourself into.
With heavy guitar riffs flying past your eardrums and grating vocals simultaneously beating them down, it becomes quite apparent that you have signed up for a rather unpleasant experience, for better or worse.
Described as an album that “captures, through our eyes, the chaos of a generation trapped in a digital world that never stops, where social media consumes identity and every day pushes us one step closer to becoming soulless zombies,” Sleepless Empire is a brutal, 11-track project that, despite only being roughly 45 minutes, seemingly never ends.
The aforementioned guitar performances are undoubtedly technically impressive, yet they frequently lack innovation, leaving the listener, frankly, bored. Not to mention, the lyrics violently shift between edgy and cringe-inducing, with co-lead vocalists Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro delivering them with just enough passion to make it semi-listenable, but not necessarily impressionable.
In a press release, the band emphasized that in each song there “is an undercurrent of rebellion, a desperate cry to reclaim oneself in an era that seems to have lost its sense of time and reality.”
While this is an interesting thematic route to trek down, it genuinely does not come across, with most of the songs, unfortunately, falling short of any real social commentary. This, in turn, leads to each song often treading familiar ground in the genre, lyrically and quite often, sonically.
With that in mind, Sleepless Empire may be experimental for Lacuna Coil, but it is far from being a forward-thinking album, and while its high-value subject matter may be intriguing for some, it is more surface-level and cringe-worthy than actually impactful.
Its biggest crime, amongst its various mediocrities, is that it sounds 20 years too late. The worst elements of early 2000s nu-metal and alt-metal worm their way into Sleepless Empire to make it a dated, unremarkable experience.
That being said, Sleepless Empire excels in its feature choice, with New Year’s Day’s Ash Costello delivering a much-needed second-half boost and Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe turning in the best male vocal performance on the entire record.
For what it’s worth, Sleepless Empire is alright. While it sounds dated and lackluster to me, those who are proponents of the gothic metal genre will probably find some enjoyment out of Lacuna Coil’s latest. Those looking for a truly experimental, innovative metal record with strong vocal performances and genuine social critique should run far, far away.
Sleepless Empire releases Feb. 14 on all major streaming platforms.