Lacuna Coil plays as
part of Ozzfest 2006 Thursday, July 27, at Darien
Lake Performing Arts Center, 232-1900. Doors at 9 a.m., show starts 12:30 p.m.
$30.50-$96. All ages
Sweet aggression
It was a night flooded
with guitar kerrang and thunder; a night of heavy
metal speed and volume and violence; a night of vocal muscles and eardrums
stretched to the limit. Anthrax and Superjoint Ritual
engaged in a crushing display of energy before a sweaty pit of raging machismo.
And there I stood, expecting just another night at The Penny Arcade.
Then I heard opener
Lacuna Coil. Then I heard Cristina Scabbia’s voice.
It rang angelic and clear over the band’s precise metal dirge. The combination
was eerie and beautiful. Sure — when you add an angel to the hellfire, you
think “goth metal,” right? But even under the metal
umbrella, the band transcended and explored multiple genre twists to create its
own gothic eaves on which to perch. The metal heads stopped to listen. The
metal heads stopped to stare. Scabbia is a knockout.
This was three years
ago and a lot has changed for this quintet from Milan, Italy.
Tours with
Anthrax and Type O Negative got the group on the road
sharpening their teeth in front of new fans. But it was Ozzfest
2004 that put them over the top.
Massive tour exposure
and 100,000-plus sold copies of its latest CD, Karma Code, have helped Lacuna Coil graduate to the main stage at
this year’s Ozzfest, making a stop Thursday at Darien
Lake. Of all the hard ‘n’ heavy heroes on the bill — System Of A Down, Hatebreed, Disturbed, and of course Sharon Osbourne’s continuing metal rendition of Weekend At Bernie’s with her hubby —
Lacuna Coil is by far the most unique act on the bill. They don’t lean on just
one type of metal. Scabbia likes American fans’
open-minded mingle. Metal fans overseas tend to segregate.
“Here in America there’re not as many sub-categories as
in Europe,” she says from a tour stop in Pittsburgh.
“In Europe there is black metal, power metal, goth metal…here it’s more mixed.”
This Yankee
open-mindedness suits the band’s multi-dimensional sound.
“The music of Lacuna
Coil is a mixture of different styles and different atmosphere,” she says. “You
will find some songs that are really smooth, but there are songs that are
definitely aggressive. There are different levels of aggression. You don’t
really need to scream all the time to be powerful.”
Scabbia’s singing complements male singer Andrea Ferro’s strident
pleas with an epic push and pull. And Karma
Code is a heavy — even a little industrial at times — minor-keyed
display. The mood is heavy as well. Even when Scabbia
intones, it’s frequently overcast and mournful. It’s bittersweet and refreshing
in a genre where certain aspects are beginning to show their rust.
At the end of this
tour the band will head back to its Mediterranean boot for a brief break before
embarking on a European tour and some soundtrack and video game work.
But for now it’s all Ozzfest, baby — even if it’s in the daylight — an oddly
bright setting for such a dark sound. Lacuna Coil usually hits the stage about
5:30 each day in the late afternoon sun.
“We don’t have any
effects or lights because we’re playing in the daylight,” Scabbia
says. “All we have to give is our own energy.”
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2006.
