Italian goth heavyweights Lacuna Coil turn Tuesday into a blackout ritual at Leeds Stylus, backed by a fired-up opening assault from Florida bruisers Nonpoint.
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Lacuna Coil @ Stylus, Leeds (John Hayhurst)
Nonpoint hit the stage like they’ve been itching for it all day. Elias Soriano stalks the mic with clipped precision, spitting hooks and commands in equal measure. Robb Rivera goes straight for the gut behind the kit, while Adam Woloszyn grinds out bass lines with industrial weight. Guitarist’s Jaysin Zeilstra and Rasheed Thomas add bite and distortion, feeding the noise without ever tipping it into clutter. The band sound more drilled-in than on their last UK run — tighter, sharper, still proudly abrasive.
With a longer slot than support acts usually enjoy, they make the space count. A brooding, metallic spin on In the Air Tonight turns Phil Collins’ iconic slow burn into something darker and hungrier, instantly recognisable but dressed in barbed wire. Later, Bullet With A Name hits like a rallying cry rather than a nostalgia nod, sending bodies forward and fists skyward. They leave the room fully switched on. As far as warm-ups go, this is more like a starter pistol.
By the time Lacuna Coil appear, the atmosphere has thickened to black velvet and steel. They open with Layers of Time, a deliberate, tension-soaked slice of modern goth-metal that sets the room on edge. Then comes the snap. Reckless surges through the PA like a cold blast, and Hosting the Shadow crawls in behind it with a venomous pulse. Kill The Light and Die & Rise hammer the crowd into movement, riffs looping like industrial gears grinding overhead. It’s heavy without bloat, theatrical without melodrama.
The turning point arrives early with Spellbound, where Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro lock into their trademark push-pull dynamic. Scabbia glides above the grit in full, unforced clarity; Ferro counters with abrasion, a bark sharpened into rhythm. The shift between soaring melody and iron-jawed growls lands cleaner live than on record, thanks to the precision work of Diego Cavallotti, Marco Coti Zelati and Richard Meiz, who build walls of sound that never feel cluttered.
The set pivots hard into industrial grandeur with In The Mean Time and Intoxicated, both drenched in electronics and menace. A sudden hush precedes Downfall, before the room erupts as Heaven’s A Lie XX crashes through. The crowd shouts every word like muscle memory, a chorus carried from the early 2000s and reforged for 2025. In Nomine Patris and Blood, Tears, Dust double down on mood and punishment, while newcomers Gravity and Oxygen slide seamlessly into the lineage, sounding like songs written to be played loud in dark rooms.
A late-set sledgehammer arrives with Nothing Stands In Our Way, delivered with the confidence of a mission statement. Then the lights drop to near black. The encore unfolds like a ritual: The Siege stomps with funeral-march precision, I Wish You Were Dead spits contempt through mechanical gears, and Swamped XX revives a fan favourite with teeth newly sharpened. Never Dawn closes the night under a cloud of churning riffs and cold theatre, the final note hanging long enough to freeze the crowd where they stand.
What stands out most is balance. The Sleepless Empire material feels like a natural evolution — darker, weightier, more metallic — while the classics hit harder because they’re not treated as relics. Scabbia and Ferro sound ferocious, the band’s core is airtight, and the whole thing runs like a machine built to bruise. On a Tuesday night in Leeds, Lacuna Coil don’t reminisce — they reign.
Live review and photography of Lacuna Coil @ Stylus, Leeds on 25th November 2024 by John Hayhurst
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