Precious Metal

IMAGINE a metal band. What do you see? Probably a bunch of ugly, axe-wielding hairy blokes with questionable personal hygiene.

Which makes Lacuna Coil something of a curiosity.

A bunch of good-looking Italians, fronted by a silken-haired girl singer with model looks, these two million record-selling goth-rockers are raising the bar – and not just sartorially.

The Milanese metallers are famed for the striking vocal duelling between frontwoman Cristina Scab and male singer Andrea Ferro, the band’s melodic sensuality and for the increasingly heavy guitar work of Cristiano ‘Pizza’ Migliore.

“We are helping to get rid of the idea that people in metal bands have to be hairy and smelly,” says Cristiano, known to his bandmates as Cris.

“We have a good-looking girl – but also some good-looking guys!

“The band has the best of all worlds – a beautiful chick who has a good voice, and heavy guitar parts. It’s cool.”

Cris is far from home, out on the road, mid-way through a tour which reaches its fnale in Oxford on Wednesday. And he admits, in his heavy Milan accent, that he is suffering – though not in the way you’d expect.

“I am slowly recovering from flu,” he sniffles. “I blame the weather – but not here. We played some shows in Italy before we came and it was even colder there. We were playing small clubs, and everyone got sick.

“Luckily my nose doesn’t run during the guitar solos; I just suffer from the misery and pain off-stage. And anyway, having flu makes it look like we are living the rock&roll lifestyle.”

The six-piece have just finished work on sixth album Dark Adrenaline, which is out in the new year. And Cris says they can’t wait to try the new songs on stage.

“Our fans are dedicated and are waiting to get their hands on the songs. We play new song Trip the Darkness live, but also have a surprise, which I can’t say too much about.”

I press him on this intriguing secret, which, after a very little nudge, he admits is another new song. “People are going to love it,” he adds. “But I can’t tell you any more than that... I have told you too much already!”

To fans of old, particularly those who got into the band at the time of their debut album, 1999’s In a Reverie – the band are harder and heavier than ever; something which is sure to go down well live.

“We have always been heavier live,” says Cris. “The songs which are most fun are from our Karmacode album which is when we started playing live a lot, and which all have a live atmosphere.

“We do get sick of playing the same songs, but it’s nice to see the reaction when we do. It makes us feel proud. Our general style is darker than before. When we toured (2009 album) Shallow Life, we realised the songs had a different reaction to our classics.

“We like to play heavier stuff – with more guitar riffs, heavier parts and guitar solos, and this album has more of that than anything we’ve ever done before. For the first time I can listen to every song and say I love them all. When you develop your own style, you realise what you really want.”

So what is it that makes Lacuna Coil so different from lesser bands?

“We are a gothic-metal band,” he says. “But we rock more and are heavier than we were. And we have Cristina’s vocals – which go from powerful to delicate and dreamy.

“That makes us really rich and diverse. We also try to be as energetic on stage as possible, which some people don’t expect.”

But how Italian are they?

“The culture you live in effects you somehow,” says Cris. “The fact we like rock and metal has made us popular in Italy – but only because we got popular in America. We struggled for a long time because we decided to play this kind of music. In Italy they like pop music or Italian music – sung in Italian! And that means there are still not many chances to play live there.”

So why have they shunned their native tongue?

“We have recorded a few songs in Italian, but it has to be something really special. The problem is, it’s hard to fit the lyrics to the music.

“When you build a sentence in Italian you have to put a lot of words in it to make sense.

“In English you can just use a few words – and that fits the music better.”

So there you have it: punchy English lyrics, US metal-core riffs and Italian panache. Could they be the ingredients for the perfect metal band?

Cris laughs. “Maybe. We are certainly unique. No one does it like we do.”

* Lacuna Coil play the Oxford O2 Academy on Wednesday. Support comes from Straight Line Stitch and October File. Tickets are £15. Doors open at 7pm.