In 2003, a small band from Little Rock, Ark. led by raven-haired singer Amy Lee landed a space on the "Daredevil" movie soundtrack. The movie would prove to be terrible, but it launched the band into superstardom overnight.
Of course, the band in question is Evanescence, and the song, which was stuck in the heads of angst-ridden teenagers for nearly two years, was "Bring Me to Life," an anthem of depression, aggression and a little bit of na'vet?©.
Three years after the release of "Fallen," the band's debut album, Evanescence has finally released a sophomore effort, "The Open Door," again written largely by goth virtuoso Amy Lee. In those three years, the band has gone through many changes, namely the departure of lead guitarist and co-writer Ben Moody and the introduction of Terry Balsamo, formerly of the band Cold, as Lee's new co-conspirator.
In terms of lyrics and song content, "The Open Door" is a departure from "Fallen"'s self-negation and helplessness, but the darkness and haunting melodies prevail, much to the delight of MTV and pop radio. It seems that audiences are more interested in the trials and tribulations of Amy Lee's personal life that are portrayed in the songs, but does the music stand on its own, emotional voyeurism aside?
Surprisingly enough, there is some substance behind "The Open Door." The opening track, "Sweet Sacrifice," gives a swift kick to the wide-eyed inexperience that pervaded "Fallen." Speaking to her younger self, Lee says, "You poor, sweet, innocent thing/ Dry your eyes and testify" with a tone that connotes a verbal slap across the face more than a warm embrace.
Throughout the album, the vocals carry the songs beyond mediocrity. Without the whisper of a proverbial woman scorned over the guitars, this track - as well as most of the other cuts on the album - could easily have been rejected Linkin Park material.
The first single, "Call Me When You're Sober," is naked of metaphor and visual imagery - Lee's strong suits - and consequently shocks the listener into fear rather than sympathy. The Amy Lee we had all come to love couldn't make up her own mind about anything in her writing prior to this song, let alone make up the mind of someone else, as she does by the end of the tune.
Without Ben Moody around to write the riffs, this album most definitely cannot bring the rock like "Fallen." Even Balsamo's best guitar lines lack the percussive chunkiness that Moody meshed so well with Lee's satin-smooth vocals. The closest Balsamo gets to a riff, using the term loosely, is the opening line in "All That I'm Living For," which is no more than a few syncopated bar chords repeated ad infinitum.
That being said, this is Amy Lee's album, so it comes as no surprise that the entire latter half of the record is made up of syrupy ballads that build to a lackluster, distorted-guitar d?©nouement. The hit ballad "My Immortal" from "Fallen" was actually written by Ben Moody, and as much as the world doesn't want to admit it, he was better at writing ballads than Lee, as shown by Lee's "Lacrymosa," "Like You" and "Good Enough," which are indistinguishable from each other until the seventeenth listen.
And where is Ben Moody now, you ask? He spent the past two years working on songs for Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson, including Clarkson's hit "Because of You," so don't feel too bad for him.
On the whole, this album churns out way too many pity points for Amy Lee rather than good compositions. While everyone can take a little happiness in knowing that Lee is in a better place personally on this album, the band was better off before. It also bears mentioning that nearly every piece of press about "The Open Door" talks more about Lee than the music she writes, and that just isn't right.
In the end, the old statement that artists must suffer for their art rings true again. Amy Lee has a gorgeous, dark-yet-angelic voice, but she needs a counterpart to complete her transformation into a group worth calling Evanescence.
