Shoutouts to all my emo, goth and rock music heads out there… Our queen has returned! Amy Lee and her band Evanescence released a new album for the first time in a decade as of two weeks ago. Although the band released five singles from the album over the last year, the full album was available to buy/stream on March 26^th. The band had plans to release the album last year but their plans derailed because of COVID which left one of the band members, Jen Majura (Guitarist), stuck in Europe for months. 

Lee told Billboard that, “Evanescence kept recording via file sharing and Zoom until around July 2020. By then, Lee felt they couldn’t continue without being in the same room together. So she sent buses to bring (her bandmates) to Nashville. Everyone got COVID-19 tests and they stayed podded while working at Raskulinecz’s Rock Falcon Studio with his engineer for about six weeks. (And that) Majura had to keep making her contributions online because the crisis prevented her from traveling from her home in Germany.” 

The album’s themes and tones speak much similarly to those of previous album with songs that talk about struggling with toxic relationships with people with songs like “Wasted on You” and “Better without You” along with songs dealing with individual struggles of the mind with songs like “Feeding the Dark” and “Broken Pieces Shine” which is a particularly popular song dealing with an individuals imperfections and how a broken individual can still shine brightly. 

Other songs have more of a political tone this year as Amy Lee came out last years against some of the hate flowing throughout politics because of things like the Black Lives Matter Protests and COVID-19 misinformation. Songs like “Use my Voice” and “Blind Belief” talk about some contemporary issues including the silence of women’s voices in social issues and how the past generation has failed us younger people in America. 

Overall the songs have deep meaning that can rock your head as you hear the heartbreaking vocals of Amy, who has become a veteran rock icon for her unique voice that mixes beauty and sadness. The guitar and bass sections of the music were pretty good, while the percussions were pretty outstanding. The issues I take with this album is the audio mixing which at some points in multiple sounds drown out Amy’s vocals making the lyrics somewhat indistinguishable. During my first time hearing some songs I had a hard time getting into the music because of this issue. Over time and after looking up the lyrics, I started finding myself feeling the same emotions as I do when I listen to the songs from “Fallen”, “The Open Door”, and “Evanescence” (2011). 

Amy Lee told the LA Times that she wanted, “to show the way around the human heart with music you can explore every dimension of it in ways words cannot express.” I think she does this successfully by invoking strong emotions during these difficult times where we have all lost so much in one form or another. 

Overall considering the facts of the difficulty in which this album was made, and this being the band’s first album in 10 year I have to be firm but fair… This album has great messages and rocking guitar and drum play, and had every chance to live up to the other three GREATS that they’ve produced. Unfortunately, that is not the case due to the poor audio mixing done by the production team. Still, I love Evanescence, and I love our goddess that is Amy Lee.

Score: 7.5/10

Favorite Songs: Feeding the Dark, Broken Pieces Shine, Part of Me, Blind Belief, and The Game is Over.