We are giving away a pair of tickets to Lacuna Coil, The Birthday Massacre, Blind Channel, Edge of Paradise @ Crystal Ballroom on May 7. To win, comment below on this post why you’d like to attend. Winner will be drawn and emailed May 1.
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From our sponsors:
The Birthday Massacre
Blind Channel
Edge of Paradise
May 7, 2023
5:30PM doors, 8PM Show | All Ages
$28.50 ADV, $32 Doors, $38.50 21+ Reserved Balcony
More info: crystalballroompdx.com
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St, Portland, OR 97209
Italian alt metal superstars Lacuna Coil are shifting the paradigm yet again with new album, Black Anima. Just as Comalies (2002), Shallow Life (2009), and chart-smashing Delirium (2016) upped the ante and rocketed the Milan-based outfit into the upper echelons of metaldom, Black Anima is a level beyond all that. It’s both a hard look at the past and a brave sprint into the future. Two years in the making, Lacuna Coil’s ninth album arrives after the group published their first book, Nothing Stands in Our Way, in 2018 and celebrated in auspicious fashion their 20th Anniversary with an ultra-exclusive, all-out insane live show in London, dubbed The 119 Show: Live in London. Lacuna Coil have never shied away from hard work. Nor, have they restrained their creative impulses to push things-new songs “Anima Nera,” “Reckless,” “Veneficium,” and “Sword of Anger” are mind-blowers!-to the absolute limit.
“We’ve been very busy,” says Lacuna Coil vocalist Cristina Scabbia. “We’ve played a lot of live shows between Delirium and Black Anima. We published our book, a chronicle of the Lacuna Coil story. And we crossed paths with our 20th Anniversary, which resulted in a quick switch from the Delirium album cycle to the 20th Anniversary one. We had a big change in our look. Our show changed a lot. We had special effects and artists performing on stage with us. That became The 119 Show, actually.”
Formed in 1994, Lacuna Coil quickly became one of Century Media’s biggest selling bands. From Comalies (2002) and Karmacode (2004) to Shallow Life (2009) and Broken Crown Halo (2014), the high-flying Italian act demonstrated an uncanny ability to pull in rock, gothic, and metal audiences. The band’s spirited and lauded live performances have also earned them a solid reputation for a band that not only delivers night in/night out, but also a band whose stage performance reverberates long after the show is over. Indeed, Lacuna Coil’s heartfelt, heavy, melodic, and rhythmic metal-a hybrid of gothic, groove, and alternative-has created a rabid worldwide following. Whether it’s “Our Truth” and “Delirium” or “Nothing Stands in Our Way” and “Trip the Darkness,” Lacuna Coil’s dual-vocalist assault is immediately identifiable. New album, Black Anima, continues the Italian’s reign atop the metal stack.
Blind Channel
Darkness which envelopes Finland is what fuels Blind Channel. The veritable coal to their roaring furnace of ambition, embracing it is the DNA that runs throughout their music. Balancing their tenacity with sincerity, “It’s this feeling of never being enough is what drives us forward right now,” vocalist Niko Vilhelm says.
When forming back in 2013 in the city of Oulu, way up in the North of Finland, vocalists Niko and Joel Hokka, drummer Tommi Lalli, guitarist Joonas Porko and bass player Olli Matela, plus the later addition of DJ/Percussionist Aleksi Kaunisvesi – knew that it was all about going big or going home. When they were told to sing in their native tongue, they refused. It was simply never an option. The doors that closed only made them want to grab an axe to break through, The Shining style, to properly make themselves known. This is exactly what they did when they found their way onto the largest stage in Europe: Eurovision, after competing in the Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), Finland’s annual contest to discover their entry. Winning the spot, by the largest landslide the competition has seen, Blind Channel captured and enamoured the continent with the fiery nu-metal charge of ‘Dark Side’.
Be warned however, Eurovision isn’t the crux of Blind Channel’s story. This stepping stone that saw them take to that hallowed stage, was just that, a gambit towards the bigger picture.