page_title: Gothic metal
section_title: Lacuna Coil
hierarchical_section_title: Gothic metal / History / Commercial success / Lacuna Coil
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of italian gothic metal band Lacuna Coil performing live in Lima, Peru, 14th March 2017 during their Delirium World Tour 2017.
context_page_description: Gothic metal is a fusion genre combining the heaviness of heavy metal with the dark atmospheres of gothic rock. The music of gothic metal is diverse with bands known to adopt the gothic approach to different styles of heavy metal music. The genre originated during the early 1990s in the United Kingdom originally as an outgrowth of death-doom, a fusion of death metal and doom metal. Lyrics are generally dark and introspective with inspiration from gothic fiction as well as personal experiences.
  Pioneers of gothic metal include Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema, all from the north of England. Other pioneers from the first half of the 1990s include Type O Negative from the United States, Tiamat and Katatonia from Sweden, and The Gathering from the Netherlands. Norwegian band Theatre of Tragedy developed the "beauty and the beast" aesthetic of combining aggressive male vocals with clean female vocals, a contrast that had been adopted by groups before them, but not as a regular trademark; several bands have employed the technique since. During the mid-1990s, Moonspell, Theatres des Vampires, Rotting Christ and Cradle of Filth brought the gothic approach to black metal.
context_section_description: The Italian band Lacuna Coil has also become a "premiere act" of the gothic metal genre. The group employs both a female vocalist Cristina Scabbia and a male vocalist Andrea Ferro, although the group uses less of a 'beauty and the beast' style, with Ferro primarily using clean vocals. Formed in Milan in 1994, they released a demo tape in 1996 strongly influenced by Paradise Lost and Type O Negative. The band "turned a lot of heads in Italy's ambient/goth scene" with their self-titled EP in 1998. Their debut album In a Reverie was released in 1999 with a style that bore "some similarities to contemporaries like the Gathering and Moonspell". Lacuna Coil's music was also "more accessible than many of their peers". A second album, Unleashed Memories, arrived in 2001, but it was their third full-length, Comalies, that became their breakthrough album, "highly praised by the metal world after its release in October 2002". On the strength of Comalies, Lacuna Coil became the most successful artist in the history of their label Century Media Records as well as the highest selling rock act in their home country Italy. The band has also achieved the distinction of being the first and, as of late 2007, the only European gothic metal band to successfully break into the United States market with radio airplay and impressive album sales. Their highly anticipated fourth album Karmacode was even more successful, debuting at number 28 on the Billboard charts, and also debuting on many European music charts. The Comalies and Karmacode albums "reportedly sold nearly 1 million units combined worldwide, a good chunk of that in the States". The band has also performed on the main stage of the American heavy metal festival Ozzfest. Their last two albums, Shallow Life and Dark Adrenaline, debuted at number 16 and number 15, respectively, on the Billboard charts.
caption: Lacuna Coil performing in Lima, Peru, in 2017
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