Lacuna Coil have released a double single to celebrate the 20th anniversary of ‘Karmacode’: ‘Fragile XX’, a reworked version of ‘Fragile’, and a remix of ‘I Wish You Were Dead’ by SWARM. The release brings together two eras of the Italian band: ‘Fragile’ opened ‘Karmacode’ in 2006, while ‘I Wish You Were Dead’ is taken from ‘Sleepless Empire’, their latest album. ‘Fragile XX’ comes with a lyric video.
“‘Fragile’ has always been a live favorite, it was actually one of the very first songs we debuted on stage even before ‘Karmacode’ was released 20 years ago,” said vocalist Andrea Ferro. “Its message of accepting life’s vulnerability, never surrendering though we live in a fragile circle that is often breached, is one that we still relate to today. While reworking a much loved song can initially feel unsettling (in particular for Maki, our main songwriter), we faced the process as a tribute to ‘Fragile’ and ‘Karmacode’, and are really excited by the result. ‘Fragile XX’ feels and sounds like Lacuna Coil in 2026, and we look forward to performing it live for the next 20 years!”
SWARM, the dark electronic project of Brandon Thomas Carroll, who has worked with Bad Omens, Till Lindemann and HEALTH, is a long-time fan. “I remember hearing ‘Karmacode’ back in the mid-2000’s and thinking that the melodies sounded so interesting & exotic. That whole album really helped to shape my taste in music, and I have been a fan ever since,” he said. “I’m cautious about agreeing to do remixes, especially when it’s for a band I love. I never ‘remix for the sake of remix’. I want to make it worth the listen; to respect the original while tastefully (and aggressively) turning it upside down and shaking something absolutely crazy out. I’m very proud of how I was able to do that here.”
‘Karmacode’ came out on 31 March 2006 in Italy and 3 April in the UK through Century Media, produced by Waldemar Sorychta. It reached number 28 on the US Billboard 200, number 17 in Italy and number 47 in the UK, and sold around 500,000 copies worldwide. Its singles were ‘Our Truth’, ‘Closer’, ‘Within Me’ and a cover of Depeche Mode‘s ‘Enjoy the Silence’; ‘Closer’ later featured in the video games ‘Guitar Hero III’ and ‘Rock Band’, and ‘Our Truth’ in ‘Rock Band 2’ and ‘Guitar Hero World Tour’.
‘Sleepless Empire’, the band’s tenth studio album, was released on 14 February 2025 through Century Media and produced by Marco “Maki” Coti Zelati. Its 11 tracks include guest appearances from Lamb of God‘s Randy Blythe on ‘Hosting the Shadow’ and New Years Day‘s Ash Costello on ‘In the Mean Time’, and ‘I Wish You Were Dead’ was released as a single on 10 February 2025, four days before the album, which peaked at number 14 in Switzerland and number 20 in Germany. It was the group’s first full-length since ‘Comalies XX’ (2022), their reimagining of their 2002 album, and Blabbermouth described it as “voluminous, intricately layered and, at its gnarliest, genuinely punishing”.
Lacuna Coil head back out in February and March 2027 as support for The Halo Effect on a European tour that also features Omnium Gatherum. The run takes in 23 shows across 11 countries, from 19 February at Hamburg’s Grosse Freiheit 36 to 18 March at Tampereen Tullikamari in Tampere, Finland, calling at Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Vienna, Prague, Warsaw and Helsinki along the way.
