Anyone who knows me personally and knows how much I appreciate Italy’s Lacuna Coil will understand my love and respect for these longtime running gothic metal masterminds. Since their formation in 1994 and have created such artistic albums such as 2001’s Unleashed Memories, 2002’s Comalies, and what appears to me my personal favorite being 2006’s Karmacode which shot themselves to the stratosphere with critically acclaimed commercial success. Now being a band for over 25 years, Lacuna Coil is widely known to be a major influence in the Italian music world.
After the success of 2016’s Delirium through Century Media Records, Black Anima is simply put, heavier, darker, emotional and implemented many genres including alternative, hard rock and traditional gothic metal preferably the earliest stages of old Paradise Lost, Type O Negative and others to name a few. Black Anima is without question Lacuna Coil’s darkest, aggressive, emotional and finest albums they’ve ever done since 2002’s Comalies which heavily focused on gothic metal with alternative traces. From Andrea Ferro’s harsh and melodic singing, double bass drumming, matured instrumentals and Cristina Scabbia’s talented vocal deliveries truly shines on this release as each member properly demonstrated talent, craftsmanship and amazing song structures front to back.
This album is about a dark cinematic experience which concentrates a vision so deeply that the inspiration was taken from multiple horror films well as a twisted insanity conceptual meaning behind the songs. Take the tracks Reckless, Black Anima, Apocalypse, and Sword Of Anger shows heaviness, beautiful vocals both performed by Cristina and Andrea, solid guitars almost bringing a Fear Factory/Motionless In White atmosphere and production on this record is simply top notch giving the members their natural talented selections. Production here is nothing but fantastic, well designed and developed records I’ve ever heard from them as this album marks the return of past material preferably Unleashed Memories mixed with Comalies but in a beautifully written approach.
Their songs, atmosphere and lyricism alone for this release brings out a Dimmu Borgir meets Draconian with Type O Negative inspired instrumentals that fully captivated industrial metal and gothic boundaries to give symbolic meanings behind the fascination and deliverance to understand Black Anima‘s true colors and personal identities. Black Anima is an album that promises new and die hard fans to know how far these Italians came long ways to make innovative and stylistic music.
Overall Score: 9.0/10
Review by Jake Butler
