Suppose you don’t count Lacuna Coil’s re-recording of their classic 2002 record Comalies. In that case, the gap between their pre-COVID album Black Anima and 2025’s Sleepless Empire is the longest between studio releases in their storied career. Glimpsing into 2002 with fresh eyes clearly shaped the direction of Sleepless Empire, without simply copying and pasting the formula or abandoning their newer sound. The result is a captivating record that embraces the past and looks towards the future.
Lacuna Coil has always opened albums with absolute ragers, and “The Siege” is no exception. Barrelling right through a formal introduction, we’re immediately met with Andrea’s death growl into Cristina’s melodic cleans. This track is all vocal-centric, and the instrumental is truly just a bed for the wildly catchy vocal lines – this is a song written for the stage, not the studio, in the best way possible.
“Oxygen” and “Scarecrow” really showcase primary songwriter Marco Coti Zelati’s riffing, as he continues to write in the style first established in 2006’s Karmacode and carried to the present day. It’s hard to call these two songs “fresh,” but they don’t need to be. It’s very easy to call them “great,” particularly the latter. Out of context, these don’t do much to separate or establish the album’s identity against Black Anima or Delirium, but that all changes quickly on track four.
The middle of the record is the most interesting and engaging. The time they spent re-visiting Comalies has had a clear effect here. The intro to “Gravity” is right out of their early catalog and stands as one of the more melodic songs on the record, despite the crushing verse riff. This song is a beautiful blend of the past, present, and future of the Lacuna Coil sound. “Gravity” challenges you the way early Lacuna Coil might have challenged you and is the absolute highlight of the album. “I Wish You Were Dead” also ditches a lot of the heavier elements in favor of keys and big melodies. For old fans who never really got on board post-Comalies or those who miss the pop-sensibilities of Karmacode, these are the songs for you. “In Nominae Patris” and “Sleep Paralysis” both feature a shreddy guitar solo, which is highly unusual for any of the band’s eras, and it’s easy to consider the latter among Cristina’s finest vocal performances.
The first of two guest appearances is Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe on “Hosting the Shadow,” the urge to throw money at Sharon Osbourne to put these two titans on the same stage at Ozzfest again is real. Though there isn’t anything particularly LoG-sounding about this song except for Randy’s voice, it’s a gentle reminder of a time and a place that no longer exists, wrapped and delivered in the form of a killer single, and hopefully an incredibly fun live collaboration.
The title track, “Sleepless Empire,” feels influenced by the early 2000s Lacuna Coil again, but it’s very obvious that the tables have changed. The bands that LC had so heavily influenced back then are influencing LC’s output now. As the landscape of modern mainstream metal continues to change, the band is moving with it. This track in particular feels like a Jordan Fish-take on Lacuna Coil, and is one of the strongest tracks the band has released in the last decade.
The second guest appearance comes from New Years Day’s Ash Costello on “In The Mean Time”. Though this song has been out for quite a while as a single, and they’ve already toured together and performed it together, it’s still an exceptional moment on this album. Though it’s easy to focus on Ash’s contribution to the bridge, I don’t want to overlook Andrea’s incredible delivery on this track, the real highlight of this track. Closing the album is “Never Dawn” – another track that’s been out for some time as a single – but is a fitting end. Like the bulk of the record, it looks both back and forward in time and can be considered the template on which this entire album is built.
If your inner goth still yearns for the melodic guitars and pretty cleans of early Lacuna Coil, they flirt with it here, but it’s not a throwback record. This is the clearest step forward in their sound in a decade, and here’s hoping that they continue to push themselves in this direction. As someone who remembers watching the video for “Heaven’s a Lie” on Fuse, the band is right where they need to be in 2025.
Lacuna Coil’s Sleepless Empire arrives on Friday (14th) via Century Media. Order here.
