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| Cake prop for Sleepless Empire |
❤:Lacuna Coil has to be my favorite Italian band. Their new album, Sleepless Empire, is finally out and it brought a fresh new start. Here are my thoughts about it, I tried to include something from an interview that Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro had with Rockol. They were speaking Italian, so I hope this translation is also useful to those unfamiliar with the language. The songs are all in English by the way, I think it is interesting how most metal bands chose Germanic languages such as English for their lyrics, we need to explore this topic sooner or later.
THE ALBUM
It’s a common idea that metal music had its golden age before the beginning of the new century. Was the previous generation the real metal generation? Are gen Z and Gen Alpha and the others to come doomed to never know the real enticing experience of the concerts and events? Luckily, the album doesn’t discuss these clichés.
It is impossible to give a final interpretation of every song, Cristina herself said the band likes leaving “the door open”, that is to say, you won't get straight-forward lyrics. Usually- Cristina says- when the band collects thoughts about their new music someone points out how they liked a specific song because it deals with a particular theme and the band realizes that theme wasn't even in their minds! However, there is definitely a pattern: the new generation, its struggles and hardships. The band is made up of millennials and they consider this an advantage; they feel as if, being born before the great technologies, they had the chance to see the whole picture: they lived their youth before social network was a thing, avoiding most of the "toxic confrontation" going on nowadays- they express it in “Sleepless Empire” through an epic metaphor, “We only praise false Gods”. The album is not meant to throw shades at youngsters, though. Cristina tried to make it as clear as possible, underlining how the band is part of the society it talks about and doesn’t stand as its critic. But the focus is on the new experience of life: in “Oxygen” we see lyrics we can relate to now, conveying the feeling of suffocating pressure through the metaphor of drowning. Its moodiness reminded me of “Going Under” by Evanescence- to be fair the whole album gave me Evanescence vibes and I loved it. After that comes "Scarecrow", dedicated to the ones leading a nightlife, a life of torment leading to a “Sleepless Empire” and a “Sleep Paralysis”. This life is not devoted to parties, as nightlife back in the day was. Instead, it's one of zombies roaming the Internet realm, or the “toxic waters”, until morning comes. This roaming is also a sign of restlessness, of endless strive for adventure, surviving the boredom of the night, “where past and future are aligned”. With this life comes a problem that’s not as new as it seems, just more relevant today: toxic relationships. Paradoxically, our constant confrontation is up to some good. States of dependency as in “I wish you were dead” are easily discovered today. The desire for the partner to cease to exist can be seen from two different moments of the relationship, either the course or the end of it. The song is polyvalent, not about one toxic relationship, more about all of them. The pain of a degrading situation leaves the self lost and lonely, searching for a strong belief to be its anchor in “In nomine Patris”. After such strong considerations, leaving the listener with a powerful statement is important. There comes “Never Down”. It suggests a solution already expressed by My Chemical Romance in “Famous Last Words”. Without acting wiser than everyone else, the song suggests how we can endure this new set of problems. It’s not about leaving the networks behind, and that’s where you know the band worked to avoid a judging perspective. It’s about fighting against the unseen enemy of social networks. In the interview, Cristina and Andrea warn us not to be too fascinated by these fancy online words as they are fragile. As the song says, “Stand up and overcome the invisible”.
A COLLECTION OF THE BEST METAPHORS
I thought the album’s best metaphors were worth collecting here. To me, they really represent the strength of the imagery evoked by Andrea and Cristina. To me, I these have the power to present our daily life in a new, dark and epic way.
• Isolation like prison, inner self to escape (Oxygen): Altgough to some this might seem like an exaggeratiom, leaving the social networks is scary to the new generation. It creates a fear of missing out, quickly escalating into an existential crisis. Marco, the band’s bassist, locked himself up for months in Emilia Romagna (possibly one of the darkest regions of Italy) to work on their new sound.
• Trapped in toxic waters I forgot to breathe (Oxygen) my favorite quote from the album, I interpret the “toxic waters” as the online world, renewing the metaphor of “drowning” in the vast realm of the internet.
• We’re fading from the inside (Oxygen). Can you tell I really like this song? This really expresses how draining the constant confrontation and striving for notoriety is. This internal sufferance actually pervades the lyrics. A similar image is evoked in "In Nomine Patris", “it’s hunting me down from the inside”.
• Hollow eyes witness every passing day (Scarecrow). A sense of anxiety pervades the whole album, here expressed through the feeling of being watched. It is a classic trope in tales of mysteries, but it’s not too different from what we feel when we post. Probably, the only difference is our actual desire to be watched.
• We are like kings locked in a cage, waiting for salvation that will never come (Sleepless Empire). The king represents an illusionary power that we feel when we are observed and at the center of attention, but he is actually trapped in an invisible cage. I also find it great that when it comes to the internet, aspects of monarchy are evoked to substitute the classic talks of "community", urging us to reflect on matters of power and comtrol online.
• We only praise false Gods (Sleepless Empire). This underlines the paradox of the new, technology-driven world. It could be bursting with inspiration coming from easly-accessed art, literature and music or even extremely stimulating activities as videogamed are. Instead, constant exposition leads only to exhaustion, making one feel isolated. Arts should bring unity to people, as a community's culture is generally built around them.
• Stand up and overcome the invisible (Never Dawn): I think this was meant to say “get off your phone as none of this is real”, it’s crazy how sometimes we forget it.
BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR?
Cristina says the band loves this album particularly as it continues their project in core music. They consider it the perfect equilibrium between the old and the new Lacuna Coil. she points out it probably is because they worked on re-listening. I think it’s the best we’ve had on the genre for a very long time and this really made me frantic with inspiration. I appreciated how core music is shifting to more socially relevant topics without giving up on some of its staples, which is possibly the most precious quality of alternative music.
P.S. I LOVED the rich, luxurious, Pinterest-worthy cake in the “I wish you were dead” video clip. I robbed the picture from Cristina's Instagram (sorry Cristina). Anyway, my birthday is in March, and I can’t wait to recreate it!
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