Lacuna Coil @ Birmingham Academy, 1st February 2010

It seems like Shawn ‘Clown from Slipknot‘ Crahan is trying to make a statement with his new band, Dirty Little Rabbits. The statement is that he can exist outside of Slipknot’s metal confines and create a psychedelic alternative rock band. I understand and applaud the attempt to do something different but it really doesn’t work.

Dirty Little Rabbits seem to have no idea what musical direction they want to take, or maybe more accurately, they want to take an interestingly nuanced progressive direction but they don’t have the musical subtlety and intuition to achieve it. And they have no songs.

The mix of Hammond organ, heavy guitar, big beats, yelping vocals and funky bass sounds a good one in theory. But it’s mixed all wrong. The organ is jarringly annoying, the guitar is weak, as are the vocals. Shawn Crahan’s drumming is completely unsuited to the rest of the music, like John Bonham jamming with some ballerina dancers. Most importantly, as the man behind the bar put it, ‘I could fart better tunes’. Stick to eating crows in formaldehyde and jumping the fuck up mate.

Lacuna Coil are a band for which I have had a sneaking admiration for some time. Chiefly on the strength of tunes from a few years back, such as ‘Swamped’ and ‘Heaven’s A Lie’ from their 2002 album ‘Comalies’. I also can’t deny that their frontwoman, the beautiful Cristina Scabbia, may have helped catch my attention.

Their new release ‘Shallow Life’ sees a less gothic and more mainstream alternative rock approach. Bigger guitar riffs, more urgent dual female/male vocal interplay and a bigger dose of teenage sounding gothic (but only superficially so) angst. The first few tracks from it sound interesting with some Arabian sounding wailing samples and a pounding almost military beat. The lovely Cristina has a sort of pseudo military looking jacket on at this point which is also nice.

A few of the newer tracks like ‘I Won’t Tell You’ get a bit too close to Linkin Park for my liking. I can’t help but feel that the new album is turning their sound consciously away from a European sound and to a less idiosyncratic, more mainstream and more American sound which would explain their growing popularity in America and Britain.

The Academy is nicely full (without the balcony being put into use) and I believe they are a band that is commercially on the up. I do think they need to be careful to rein in this possible tendency though and keep their peculiarly European sound which is part of their charm.

I have also always wished that Andrea Ferro, the band’s male vocalist, would leave the vocals to Cristina. Whilst her vocals are pleasingly ethereal, his are a bit artless. These minor gripes aside the Coil put on a good show and when they get to tracks such as ‘Swamped’ and the like they kick in to a new gear. They give a nod to Depeche Mode with a cover of ‘Enjoy the Silence’ which goes down well with its obligatory singing contest. “We were in Manchester last night and they were pretty loud, but I think you guys can do better”. You get the idea.

Cristina is an obvious focal point. She has a brilliant voice and is beautiful, but has some balls and a refreshing honesty (and also a certain endearing nerdiness) to her. One of the best tracks is actually in Italian and called ‘Senzafine’ (no idea what it means but it sounds great). In fact she can make any type of vocal style sound good, even yodelling. By the end Lacuna Coil have won me over with their enthusiasm, but I do hope they keep their older and more genuinely gothic sound in the future.

Review Adam Moffatt
Photos Katja Ogrin

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