Words: Callie Petch
It has been a hot minute since we’ve heard from long-running Italian metalheads Lacuna Coil. Although their last release was only in 2022, Cornalies XX ended up being, as the name suggests, just some reworked versions of their breakthrough 2002 album, Cornalies. You have to go back to 2019, pre-COVID times(!), for their last new music proper, Black Anima. This coming February, that’s something which’ll be rectified when they unleash their 10th studio album, Sleepless Empire.
Today, we get to hear the lead single “Oxygen,” a suitably gothic stomper which is constantly shifting through charging verses screamed by Andrea Ferro, headbanging breakdowns courtesy of drummer Richard Meiz and multi-instrumentalist Marco Coti Zelati, and eventually breaks through skyward with a soaring chorus from Cristina Scabbia. It is, in so many words, Lacuna Coil doing what they do best, the kind of track that makes me wonder why I haven’t listened to way more of their work.
Given that Scabbia’s verse interjections are mixed to make her sound like she’s drowning underwater, it’s perhaps no surprise that the accompanying video by Daniele Tofani has a watery theme. Scabbia talks about it and the song below:
“Oxygen” is a powerful exploration of emotional struggle and inner conflict. The lyrics convey a sense of drowning in a toxic environment, both literally – in the video – and metaphorically, where attempts at salvation, represented by oxygen, are somehow futile. This song encapsulates the feeling struggling to break free from what holds us down, when the journey is filled with difficulty. It’s a raw anthem of vulnerability, resilience and the courage to face what seems insurmountable. Having to stay in the water for so many hours during the video shoot was cathartic for me; the realisation that the pleasant sensation of floating could, in an instant, become dangerous and deadly if I wasn’t careful, was very fitting with the song’s theme.
On Sleepless Empire at large, the band also shared a statement about the record’s themes:
Sleepless Empire 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. We find ourselves in between, having witnessed a full analogic world and the modern one, confronting the evolution and searching for a true meaning to it al. Throughout every song, the journey is an undercurrent of rebellion, a desperate cry to reclaim ourselves in an era that seems to have lost its sense of time and reality.
For those of you who can’t wait until February to hear more from the album, good news! Lacuna Coil have a full UK tour which starts in less than two weeks where they’ll almost certainly air out a few Sleepless cuts alongside all the old classics. Finnish nu-metal band Blind Channel are on support duties. Check the dates below and buy tickets here:
- Tue 15 BELFAST Limelight
- Wed 16 DUBLIN Academy
- Fri 18 BOURNEMOUTH Academy
- Sun 20 MANCHESTER Academy
- Mon 21 GLASGOW SWG3
- Tue 22 WOLVERHAMPTON KK’s Steel Mill
- Thu 24 NOTTINGHAM Rock City
- Fri 25 LONDON Roundhouse
- Sat 26 BRISTOL Academy
Credit: CUNENE.
Sleepless Empire is out on 14th February via Century Media Records. The special deluxe box set edition includes “an oracle game to be played with custom made dice” created by the band. I have no idea what that is but it sounds pretty cool and is at least more unique than a postcard with a printed autograph on it. You can pre-order here.
