Shallow Life

When the Karmacode tour ended in late 2007, Lacuna Coil decided to work with a new producer for the first time; Cristina Scabbia has said they wanted someone who did not know the band to show them what they could learn. They chose Don Gilmore, whose credits included Linkin Park and Pearl Jam, and recorded at NRG Studios in North Hollywood in September and October 2008, with Gilmore also engineering and sharing the lyric credits. Scabbia said an outsider's view showed them the bigger picture and taught them most about songwriting; lyrics that had been cryptic became direct. It was the band's first concept album, every song dealing with a superficial way of living and the unhappiness it brings; Andrea Ferro said the target was not celebrities but habits anyone can fall into. Scabbia felt the record had become more "rock", mixing their older European sound with something modern. "Spellbound" came out digitally in March as the first single, with a video shot by the director Saku at Dolce & Gabbana's Gold restaurant in Milan in performance and story versions; it won the editing award at the Premio Videoclip Italiano in December 2009. Saku's video for "I Won't Tell You" followed in January 2010, the first to put the band's fans on camera. Scabbia and Ferro sang, Marco Coti Zelati played bass and keyboards, Cristiano Migliore and Marco Biazzi guitars and Cristiano Mozzati drums, and Ted Jensen mastered the album. Century Media set the release for 17 April in Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Benelux countries, 20 April in Britain and most of Europe, and 21 April in North America. It sold 21,000 copies in its first American week and entered the Billboard 200 at number 16, above Karmacode's 28; it reached 25 in Italy and 42 in the United Kingdom, where it was number 2 on the rock albums chart. In America the band joined Disturbed on the Music As A Weapon IV tour, and in 2010 a two-disc deluxe edition with rare and unreleased recordings sold for the price of one CD.