The Ultimate Review of Broken Crown Halo

Lacuna Coil is pretty similar to In Flames - both bands started out with a similar style, both bands are European, and both bands have changed their sound drastically towards alt rock. There are 2 differences- the genres each band started out playing (gothic metal for Lacuna Coil, melodeath for In Flames), and how enjoyable the products by each band as a result of the change in sound are. In Flames has pretty much become a bad metal band as of Siren Charms due to this change, but Lacuna Coil, on the other hand, actually still has the ability to play decent music left in them.

Lacuna Coil figured out what In Flames didn't: slowly phase out the non-metal aspects of your music last. The guitar riffs here are still somewhat metallic, as metallic as the guitars on an album by, oh say, Sevendust or Coal Chamber, but that's not a bad thing. In fact, if the guitars sound like this on the next album, I'm actually going to be kind of looking forward to embracing Lacuna Coil as an alt rock band; it's more enjoyable then anything In Flames has put out in the last 2 years (or likely will put out in the next decade). The drumming is just there, I can't complain about it, but I can't praise it, either. So, nothing else to say there.

The vocals are the second-best thing about this album. Christina Scabbia (whose last name I always screw up the spelling of) has a very pleasant voice, and unlike a certain Swedish vocalist belonging to a band I mentioned earlier in this review, she sticks to what she does best, which is clean melodic vocals (whereas that other vocalist focuses more on whining). I can't talk about the lyrics, mainly because while they aren't terrible, they aren't noteworthy, either, they're just basic Lacuna Coil lyrics.

The best part of this album is the bass. It's noticeable, and really impressive. If I was to make a list of albums with the best bass parts, this would probably be in the top 10, if not the top 5. In fact, the bass is what really saves this album from getting a rating lower then 50%, and it was so impressive that it brought an album that would normally be a 40-45% up to a 65%. While I'm not going to be going out of my way to see Lacuna Coil live if this is the path they will take with all future releases, if they are on the same bill for a festival as a band I would go out of my way to see, I'm not going to skip their show.
Final Score: 37 / 100