Lacuna Coil, briefly known as Sleep of Right and Ethereal, are a symphonic/ gothic/ melodic metal band formed in Milan, Italy. They usually count their existence as a band from 1998, when they adopted their present name on signing with Century Media and began to record their debut full-length album, In A Reverie, with four of the six members of what was to become their most long-term core line-up, lead vocalists Andrea Ferro and Cristina Scabbia, composer/bass guitarist and sometime keyboard player Marco “Maki” Coti Zelati, drummer/percussionist Cristiano “CriZ” Mozzati, and guitarists Cristiano “Pizza” Migliore and soon-to-be-added second guitarist Marco “Maus” Biazzi.

Early members who performed with them under previous names and/or recorded with them on the Lacuna Coil EP, released in the early months of 1998, included the late Claudio Leo (also of Cayne, who died in 2013, and to whose memory the song One Cold Day was later dedicated), Raffaele Zagaria, Leonardo Forti and Michelangelo Algardi.

Probably Italy’s best-known modern-day musical export, they bore a huge part in pioneering and popularising the melodic metal blend of “beauty and the beast” style vocals with their male and female lead singers, were the first female-fronted or co-fronted band to be asked to play the main stage at Ozzfest in 2006, and have enjoyed sustained success across both Europe and the United States for well over a decade.

They have released nine studio albums (In A Reverie, Unleashed Memories, Comalies, Karmacode, Shallow Life, Dark Adrenaline, Broken Crown Halo, Delirium and Black Anima), two EPs (Lacuna Coil and HalfLife), two live CD/DVD compilations (Visual Karma: Body, Mind, and Soul, recorded at Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany, and The 119 Show — Live in London, which records a one-off show performed at the Kentish Town Forum in London, UK, to celebrate their 20th anniversary as Lacuna Coil), and a comprehensive compilation also released to mark their 20th anniversary, The Presence of the Past. Two additional singles (“Naughty Christmas” and the Amazon-exclusive “Bad Things”, the latter of which was released on Hallowe'en 2019, to promote Amazon Music Italy) have never featured on any album or compilation to date.

Studio album number nine, Black Anima, was released in multiple formats, including a limited edition red vinyl, on 11 October 2019, shortly prior to a lengthy tour beginning in the States and moving on to Europe, where they went on to perform with Swiss folk metallers Eluveitie and comparative unknowns Infected Rain.

The line-up of the band, as of the release of Black Anima, consists of Andrea, Cristina and Marco Coti Zelati with lead guitarist Diego “DD”/“Didi” Cavallotti and brand new member Richard Meiz. These five performed together at the Alcatraz in Milan for a one-night-only, socially-distanced stage show in August 2020 that was livestreamed worldwide, to relieve the anxiety of being unable to tour and meet fans during the COVID-19 pandemic, using the Italian live music app A-Live.

Their official fan site bears the English version of their name, Empty Spiral, and is frequented by thousands of their fans every year.