Lacuna Coil

Lacuna Coil started life with a metallic lean, but Cristina Scabbia’s atmospheric vocals led the goth-rock group toward mellower (not mellow, but mellower) places. The Italian band’s 2009 album, Shallow Life, continues the direction established on 2006’s Karmacode, which infused the original ideals of heavy metal into stylized, theatrical numbers. It’s weird, more than a little eerie, and more inspired than many of its progressive-metal peers. (It also doesn’t hurt that Scabbia is easy on the eyes.)

Updated 05/11/2010