Josh Becker | Co-Founder | Contributor
Cristina said in an interview, regarding “Comalies XX”, that they wanted to do something special for the 20th anniversary of Comalies.
They did not want to do a remaster of it, but wanted to completely rebuild the songs from the ground up, and they definitely have done that!
To quote Lacuna Coil “Comalies XX is alive and walks alone, this is not a remake or a reboot, it’s ‘Comalies’ on steroids”!
When you listen to the new tracks, you still get the essence of the old ‘Comalies’ album, but you can definitely notice the drastic difference in instrumentation, chord progression, keys, etc.
I can’t help but feel like the changes in the instrumentation, and making it darker has to do with what is going on in our world, namely the Covid-19 pandemic. For instance, if you listen to the new version of “Angel’s Punishment”, a news reporter in the background talks about Covid-19.
Overall, on the album, I thought it was a decent listen, and I love the fact that it’s heavier, and I love the fact Andrea incorporated the growls and metal-esque voice he has shown with the last few albums.
However, I am not a fan of how a lot of the songs have a slower tempo, and I am not a fan of how some of the remade songs feel like they are missing certain parts of the songs. For instance, with “Tight Rope”, the guitar break before the chorus comes on was cut short, and it felt a little bit underwhelming.
And with “Aeon”, the song skipping effect where the intro instrumentation repeats in the original version, is almost entirely omitted from XX version.
I can’t completely say it is a bad album by any means, but for me, I would give it a 7/10.
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