Lacuna Coil's gothic horror show, at Alcatraz in Milan

“Lacuna Coil’s performance at Bloodstock proves that the band is operating at the peak of their abilities. Thirty years into their career, Lacuna Coil are writing some of the best songs ever – and delivering some of their most extraordinary live performances,” was how “Loudersound” opened its review of the band’s appearance at the Bloodstock Festival in England last August. The same applies on the evening of October 10th, in Milan, where the most loved Italian metal band abroad inaugurates the long European tour which will last until December. At Alcatraz, packed with fans who by age demonstrate that they have followed the group from the beginning, Lacuna Coil return for the first time after the pandemic and do so with the authority of those who have built a recognizable language, capable of speaking an international language without ever severing their roots. Punctual at 9pm, they turn on a concert of twenty-one songs for over an hour and a half of music, between new blood and shared memory, within a sound that envelops and enthralls.

On stage, the aesthetics of the most recent album “Sleepless empire” (read our interview here and our review here) becomes scenography, with the silhouette of the album cover standing out at the center of the stage, between white smoke and sharp lights, sculpting a gothic horror dimension. Makeups, costumes and stage movements build a theatrical ritual in which the registers of the sacred and the profane, the human and the monstrous are intertwined. Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro move like two poles of the same energy, divided and complementary, while Marco “Maki” Coti Zelati’s bass and Richard Meiz’s tight drums draw a sonic labyrinth of rhythm and tension.

“Layers of time” and “Reckless”, from the ninth studio album “Black Anima” of 2019, are entrusted with the task of opening the show amidst applause and chants. At the heart of the setlist is “Sleepless empire”, which dominates the evening with its distorted visions and its sound architecture. “Hosting the shadow”, “Gravity”, “Oxygen”, “The siege” and “I wish you were dead”, interspersed with “Kill the light” from 2012 and other less recent songs such as “Spellbound”, become chapters of a story that alternates fragility and impact, introspection and anger. The first live performance of “In nome patris” is a symbolic, almost liturgical moment, introduced by the silence of the audience, while “Downfall” is filled with sudden emotion in Cristina’s dedication to her mother. And then there is the return to the origins, with “Swamped XX”, which reopens the time of “Comalies” and celebrates its legacy with the version created for the 2022 re-release.

Alcatraz responds as a single body, crossed by sound and gesture, while the band never misses an opportunity to indulge in interactions with those present or stories. Raised hands follow each shot, in an involvement that goes beyond habit and becomes physical participation. After the final encore with “Never dawn”, the band bids farewell to applause that never dies down. The audience remains motionless for a few moments, as if suspended between sleep and wakefulness. It is the effect of a concert that does not seek the aesthetics of metal, but its truth: the one that arises from the contact between power and fragility, between darkness and lucidity, within an empire that never sleeps.

Here is the lineup:

Layers of Time
Reckless
Hosting the Shadow
Kill the Light
Die & Rise
Spellbound
Delirium
In the Mean Time
Intoxicated
Downfall
Heaven’s a Lie XX
In Nomine Patris
The House of Shame
Blood, Tears, Dust
Gravity
Oxygen
Nothing Stands in Our Way
Encore
The Siege
I Wish You Were Dead
Swamped XX
Never Dawn