In a new interview with Claudio Pérez of Cuero Y Metal, LACUNA COIL co-vocalist Andrea Ferro spoke about the band’s upcoming album, “Sleepless Empire”, which will be released February 14, 2025 via Century Media Records. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We’re very excited because, obviously, we have the songs for a long time now because we recorded and mixed and then mastered. So we can’t wait for everybody else to hear it. And it’s an exciting time. It’s been a while since we released a complete new album, so we’re really excited about it. And we can’t wait for people to hear it. And, yeah, we’re very, very proud of the job we’ve done with the album. I think it’s something in the way of our latest things, but also it takes a little bit of a darker direction, certain things. So I’m really proud of the record. We like it a lot.”
Regarding the musical direction of “Sleepless Empire”, Andrea said: “I think, obviously, we do have our style that has been established in the years, so you can recognize the style of the band, but I think it has quite a variety of songs. Some stuff is really heavy, some stuff is a bit more dark, some stuff is a little lighter — ‘I Wish You Were Dead’, for example, is more of a catchy song in a way. So I think it’s a progression from [2019’s] ‘Black Anima’, but also it incorporates some of the darker elements of the ‘Comalies XX’ [a ‘deconstructed’ and ‘transported’ version of LACUNA COIL‘s third album, ‘Comalies’], when we’d redone ‘Comalies’. So, yeah, I think working on that record kind of brought us back a little bit of the dark roots of LACUNA COIL. So it’s a mix of those two works, I think. Yeah, I think that’s the most different thing, is that it’s kind of a heavy, like ‘Black Anima’, but it’s also more dark, like ‘Comalies XX’.”
As for the “heavier” sound of “Sleepless Empire” compared to some of LACUNA COIL‘s previous efforts, Andrea said: “I think in general we started to become more heavy with [2016’s] ‘Delirium’. It was the first record where we took a heavier direction, maybe because we changed a little bit the lineup of the band and we had a little different musicians that had a different style, obviously, than the previous one and so we could push on different things, like the double bass or some other stuff. And Marco [Coti Zelati], the bass player, which is the main songwriter for LACUNA COIL, he just felt he was going that way with the inspiration — what he was listening to, it was just going in a little bit more extreme way. And so we just followed the inspiration. It’s not that that we decided, ‘Okay, now we’re gonna go heavy.’ It’s just the way music was going, the way we were listening to other bands, it was going in that direction. And I think also music in general has been going more in that direction, especially rock music. Most of the new bands, they’re all going heavy in a way, either with the vocals or with the music; there’s a lot of heavy stuff out there. So I think it’s just the vibe of the music that we follow.”
Inspiration to create “Sleepless Empire” came during the sessions for the aforementioned “Comalies XX” (2022),the acclaimed remake of LACUNA COIL‘s breakthrough third record “Comalies”. Writing and recording took place in northern Italy between Milano (the band’s hometown) and Como, where SPVN Studios are located. As with their previous albums, production was done in house with Marco “Maki” Coti Zelati at the helm, and artwork was hand curated by the talented Italian artist Roberto Toderico. Two other very special talents enrich the album, namely the guest vocalists: LAMB OF GOD‘s Randy Blythe on the song “Hosting The Shadow” and NEW YEARS DAY‘s Ash Costello on “In The Mean Time”.
As a token of the band’s love for the gaming world (which we’ve seen in past endeavors such as their card game “Horns Up” and their collaboration with Zombicide for which they wrote the track “Never Dawn”),the band have created an oracle “game” to be played with custom made dice available only in the box set version of “Sleepless Empire”.
Last year, Italian guitarist/producer Daniele Salomone joined LACUNA COIL as the replacement for LACUNA COIL‘s longtime guitarist Diego Cavallotti.
Salomone made his live debut with LACUNA COIL on August 4, 2024 at the Rockstadt Extreme Fest in Râșnov, Romania.
In June 2024, LACUNA COIL announced Cavallotti‘s departure. Diego, who joined LACUNA COIL in 2016, initially as a fill-in guitarist following the exit of Marco “Maus” Biazzi, later said in a social media post that “this decision is not the result of my dissatisfaction or desire to explore new opportunities.”
Cavallotti and Salomone played together in the Italian metal band INVERNO, which released its debut album, “Stasis”, in December 2023.
Photo credit: Cunene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1npCRnErxw