Sleepless Empire

On *Sleepless Empire*, Italian goth-metal stars Lacuna Coil examine the pervasive difficulty of balancing real life with an increasingly online world. “It can sound like a critique of society, but it’s more of an analysis because we are also doing this,” co-vocalist Andrea Ferro tells Apple Music. “We use social media a lot, and it’s not something we can avoid. But we’re old enough to have the experience of living life before the internet. We kind of have a balance in our life between what we know we can put on the internet and what we just want to enjoy with our friends and family.” *Sleepless Empire* is Lacuna Coil’s first album of all-new material since 2019’s *Black Anima*. During the pandemic, they worked remotely on a new version of their 2002 breakout album, *Comalies*, which was released in 2022 as *Comalies XX*. Ferro and his bandmates—co-vocalist Cristina Scabbia, multi-instrumentalist Marco Coti Zelati, and drummer Richard Meiz—view quarantine as one of the accelerants of the always-online lifestyle. “Once we were free to go out again, some people went back to their normal life, and a lot of other people got stuck in this situation, living online and being on Twitch all the time or something,” Ferro says. “So, the album is more of a reflection that we can’t avoid, but we’re also not prisoners. We are stuck in a loop, and it’s so hard to slow down, but it can be done. I just wish we could handle all of it in a more reasonable way.” Below, he discusses each track on *Sleepless Empire*. **“The Siege”** “It’s a song that starts quite aggressively, to show the fact that we feel under this siege in our society nowadays. But it’s also about growing your own existence in sort of a figurative battle and walking between all these stages of your life, surviving and trying to make your best way out of it. We need to learn and resist, and even if we fall, we have to get back up. So, it’s basically about all of us. It’s about how we have to face life with all the difficulties that we might encounter, especially in this very weird-shaped society that we are living in.” **“Oxygen”** “It’s quite an intense song. It’s very aggressive, but also very melodic at the same time. It’s about finding balance, in a way. This can be in a relationship, but also within yourself. The way we write the songs, it usually starts from some real feelings that we experience, but then we try to write it in a way that everybody can sort of find their own interpretation. It doesn’t have to be our reason—it can be your own. So, ‘Oxygen’ can be about a relationship, or it can be about survival in general, fighting your way out of what surrounds you, basically.” **“Scarecrow”** “This one starts with some intricate layers, but then it also portrays an abstract image that represents how we feel in the middle of a lot of people. Sometimes, even between a lot of people, you can kind of still feel alone. It’s important that you accept yourself even in the weirdness, even in the not feeling all right, even if you have a different condition than other people. Sometimes, coming from an alternative environment, we create our own point of view, our own way of living, and we embrace a lot of different people who feel isolated from what’s considered the norm.” **“Gravity”** “It’s a song that features a constant switch between, as we way, abrasion and allure—something that is rough but also very delicate at the same time. It’s probably one of the most gothic songs on the album. Many people who have heard it say that it kind of portrays all the eras of Lacuna Coil in one song. It captures some vibes from the past, some vibes from the current sound of the band—and for us, it also opens a new pathway. It’s a dark song with the dark meaning of not being focused anymore, but in the end, there is also a little bit of hope.” **“I Wish You Were Dead”** “It\'s a more melodic song, maybe the most accessible song on the record. We wanted to twist it a little bit with the lyrics, although they do have an ironic overtone. We always start from personal feelings, but we don’t wish that anybody was dead. Surely, we all have this person that we wish was not in our life anymore somehow—or even never existed. We’re shooting a video that will have some special features that apply to the title, but also to the release date of Valentine’s Day.” **“Hosting the Shadow” (feat. Randy Blythe)** “This is the first record where we used a guest vocalist. We had some guests on a previous record, but on lead guitars mostly. This time, we wanted to try and get a couple of songs with guest vocalists, but not too many because we obviously have already two vocalists in the band. It was great to work with Randy because we’ve known him since Ozzfest 2004. He’s a big fan of Lacuna Coil, as much as we are fans of Lamb of God. He’s also a friend, so it was a natural choice to ask him. We sent him the song, and he came back super enthusiastic. He put some of his own arrangement into it, and it was just great to have him. It’s a celebration of our friendship.” **“In Nomine Patris”** “We had this title ready that we wanted to use, but we weren’t sure how in the beginning. Then we thought about what it means, and that it’s also the beginning of a prayer as well—‘In the name of the father’—so that gave us the connection. We lose ourselves sometimes in the name of something that seems bigger than us, but we don’t have a clear reason why. It’s in our blood, in our culture, in the way we’ve been raised sometimes. We personally are not very religious, but we do respect faith. We know something higher exists because we’re just a tiny bit of this universe.” **“Sleepless Empire”** “We are living in this generation that is losing the capability of elaborating thoughts because we are bombed with so much information—so many inputs, so many TV shows, music, video games. Everything is in abundance, and we are always connected. But in the end, we become like zombies. We’re always in front of the phone and depending on it, waiting for the next thing to come out. Sometimes we forget to go out into real life and just hang out with our friends or have a drink with dear people and spend time with them. We need to find this balance.” **“Sleep Paralysis”** “This is coming from a personal experience of real sleep paralysis that Cristina had, but in the song, we play with that idea a little bit. When you have sleep paralysis, you are scared because you’re awake, but you can’t control your body. Sometimes, we feel we need to regain control a little bit of our lives. There’s a lot of pressure from the outside because everybody on social media shows their best life. They never show their weaknesses or their low moments. And so, there is pressure to be as good as this, especially if you are very young and don’t have experience in life. You don’t have to let these things drive your life and decide the speed of how you want to live.” **“In the Mean Time” (feat. Ash Costello)** “We were looking for more of a rock voice, not a super clean or operatic voice, for this song because it goes into more of a rock dimension. We considered a couple of people, but Ash was the main person who came to mind. We never met her in person, but we’re labelmates, so we kind of know her. We asked her if she would join us for the song, and she got excited and sent her part right away. To our ears, her vocal arrangement is more American sounding, and we are really happy with the result. The chorus transports you from a claustrophobic moment to a feeling of hope, especially in the part that Ash sings.” **“Never Dawn”,/b> “We are big nerds, and we always play board games, video games, and read comic books. This is a song that we’ve done for a collaboration with a board game called Zombicide. They had this new edition of the game coming out called White Death, and they asked us to write a song to be used in the trailer on YouTube and in all the promo. It was actually much easier than working on one of our regular songs because we already had the theme and a very clear vision for the lyrics and for the aggressiveness of the music. They even made a comic book that we gave away at Comic Con to explain how the band gets dragged into the fantasy world of the game.”**

Italian goth metal legends Lacuna Coil further refine their light-and-shade majesty on typically heavy 10th studio album, Sleepless Empire.

After surviving for 30 years with both reputation and dignity intact, LACUNA COIL have little to prove to anybody these days. As gothic metal's most consistent exponents, the Italians have gone about their business with quiet determination, ably supported by a passionate fan base. Their status as he...

Ed Walton reviews the new album from Italian metallers Lacuna Coil! Read his review of 'Sleepless Empire' here on Distorted Sound!

A review of Sleepless Empire by Lacuna Coil, available February 14th worldwide via Century Media Records.