It is hard to believe that in the ten years that Evanescence have been around that they have only managed to release two albums prior to their new release, Evanescence. Mind you we are probably extremely lucky that this album even got made. In the five years since An Open Door was released Amy Lee has had extensive personal time off, there was one false start on this album in 2010 and one poor producer was shown the door mid-recording.
But, finally Evanescence has hit the shelves and the first thing that is obvious while listening to the album is that the band have become heavily influenced by the likes of Nightwish and Within Temptation, unfortunately unlike those two previous bands Evanescence just don’t have the ability to make sure every track is a gem.
The album kicks off in amazing style with the first single ‘What You Want’, a track that really embraces the symphonic metal sound and like second track, ‘Made Of Stone’ reminds you just how amazing Amy Lee’s vocals really are.
‘The Change’ sees Lee reflect with some heartfelt lyrics and the mellow sound brings a great atmosphere to the album, this is closely followed by ‘My Heart Is Broken’, another personal track for Lee that is piano driven but then builds to an extremely epic sound.
Terry Balsamo’s heavy guitar riff lifts ‘The Other Side’ to a whole new level but is then that the album takes a wrong turn. ‘Ease This’ is an ordinary sounding track that only has life breathed into it by a terrific guitar solo and Lee’s amazing voice while ‘Sick’, ‘End Of The Dream’, ‘New Way To Bleed’ and ‘Disappear’ all fail to inspire.
Luckily, Evanescence do still have a few cards up their sleeves, the sweet piano driven ‘Lost In Paradise’ is well worth another listen while ‘Oceans’ sees Lee being really heartfelt as she pours her soul into a song written about the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
It seems being soulful does work for Evanescence because two more highlights just happen to be ‘Never Go Back’ and ‘Secret Door’ which both see the band embrace a real classical Gothic sound… and it’s enough to send shivers down the listener’s spine.
If you were writing a report card for Evanescence you would have to say, ‘tries hard, but needs to do better’. It’s great that the band have embraced a newer sound but it’s sad that too many of the tracks are just…well, ordinary. Good to have them back, and let’s hope their new stuff gets better and better
Rating: 