Century Media
2014
1. Nothing Stands In Our Way
2. Zombies
3. Hostage To The Light
4. Victims
5. Die & Rise
6. I Forgive (But I Won't Forget Your Name)
7. Cybersleep
8. Infection
9. I Burn In You
10. In The End I Feel Alive
11. One Cold Day
Lacuna Coil are a band that I've been listening to for quite awhile at this point. Really they were among the first few less mainstream bands I started picking up on in high school when I was still mostly listening to bigger names like Ozzy, Maiden, Pantera, etc, etc. As such they have sort of a special place with me. There's no doubt the band has picked up more of a mainstream/alt metal touch to their music over time, but I've still always liked their albums to some extent. Actually, lately, I find their newer sound has grown on me more. I'd rate their last album Dark Adrenaline higher now than I did when I first reviewed it. It's something that happens sometimes and it can work the other way as well. An album can either grow on you or grow tired. I guess when you get past some more chuggy riffs on some tracks and similar modern touches the band still does have some great melodies and catchy tunes. I find myself wanting to listen to the songs on Dark Adrenaline quite a lot so it's got a degree of staying power. With all the albums I own I don't always have time for everything so regular play speaks well for an album's quality. With all that in mind I was looking forward to hearing what Broken Crown Halo had to offer.
Well to be perfectly blunt it didn't take me long to decide this album isn't anywhere near as good as Dark Adrenaline. Listening to this one, the album didn't even really keep my attention until track 6 (I Forgive). Five throwaway tracks to start an 11 track album isn't too good to say the least.
Getting back to the start though, Nothing Stands In Our Way opens the album with a kind of (too) bouncy sounding rhythm and a very chuggy sound that did nothing to encourage me from the start. Also worth noting is Marco's vocals which occasionally get harsher and do nothing to add to my enjoyment of the material to say the least. Zombies follows that in a similar fashion as it is also a chugfest with even more harsher vocals from Marco which just aren't great. Moving along we have Hostage To The Light which is a bit softer, but just sounds too mainstream radio ready for me. Things get worse though as Victims is just plain bad as the band seems to want to go very aggro on us and not in any kind of good way. It seems at this point like the album just really wants to yell at the listener and the shoutiness just doesn't work for this band at all. Lacuna Coil's strength has always been in smooth melodies, atmosphere, catchiness, and powerful vocal deliveries and this really has none of those qualities. It's odd that with Cristina Scabbia's superior, soaring, and sometimes haunting voice that she gets kind of rappy and shouty on this song. Nothing I've really heard from her and nothing I ever want to hear again. Unfortunately, Die & Rise is much the same with it's angry shouting from Marco for most of the track building to a similar chorus which is probably the worst in any of their songs.
Beyond that we get back to I Forgive which is decent, but not much more than that. This song does at least has some flow and atmosphere to it, but this wouldn't even really qualify as a highlight on another Lacuna Coil album. It's just ok to listen to and doesn't actively annoy me like several other tracks. Cybersleep is a bit more subdued and melodic as well, but it starts off on the wrong foot with some autotune and then doesn't get much better than "doesn't suck". Infection also passes by as an average track that sounds just a tad too modern for me to really latch on to. I Burn In You is similar, but with some more particularly jarring/annoying shouting from both vocalists towards the end of the song that made me want to never listen to it again. By this point I was getting towards complete apathy with this thing, but I've gone this far with the track by track so I guess I might as well continue. I'm not sure why I'm punishing myself here, but I guess I just have a lot of complaints about these tracks. Moving on to In The End I Feel Alive, this one is is again too modern/chuggy for me to enjoy it much. The chorus is pretty decent, but it can't really save all the chugga chugga with Marco singing that bores me. One Cold Day closes the album in ballad fashion, but once again the melodies fail to grab me and this seems really half assed. There's just not enough passion or catchiness to sell this kind of a track here.
Well, after that breakdown of the tracks you can imagine my thoughts here I suppose. Broken Crown Halo varies between average to sucking with very little in the way of redeeming features. Cristina Scabbia is still a good singer, but she doesn't sell this album and leans away from her strengths, as does the whole band. This is not the kind of majestic and haunting melodies I want out of Lacuna Coil. It's mostly just some half assed modern/alternative metal album built to be easily digestible, but it doubly fails as it doesn't even have the catchiness to sell it as that. This is easily Lacuna Coil's worst album to date and it's not even really close. I can't really recommend this to much of anyone unless you for some reason enjoy the most generic female fronted rock the radio can throw at you. This isn't the worst album I've ever heard, but it is one of the more bland. I can gurantee that Broken Crown Halo doesn't have much room to grow on me. I'm not sure I'll even try listening to this more now that I'm done with this review.
Highlights: I Forgive
Rating - 1.5/5
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