It’s most certainly been a strange few years for Evanescence front-lady Amy Lee. At the start of the ‘00s, she saw her band change line-ups as often as Lady Gaga changes gender. Her proto-Twilight songs became anthems for armies of suburban teens worldwide and in the wake of the wilt of the riot grrrl scene, the rock press appointed her the unwitting spokeswoman and representative for anyone with XX chromosomes and a penchant for crunching guitars.
For the most part she dealt with it all rather well, but after the band’s second album The Open Door sold in excess of six million copies and the pressure really started to mount for a follow-up, she did what any sane person would do – she fled the scene of the crime and disappeared for a few years. Evanescence is her first new material in five years and sees her band of not-so-merry men help her claw back some lost ground by wisely opting to drop the more po-faced elements of their sound and put more focus on huge choruses and spiky riffs.
The results are a fun, if predictable goth-tinged nu metal record that will remind many why they fell in love with the group in the first place. Despite a few filler tracks (‘Oceans’, ‘The Other Side’) efforts such as ‘The Change’ and ‘What You Want’ are monster hits in the making. The Eurovision-y sounds of ‘Lost In Paradise’ alone should ensure that Amy Lee will re-establish herself as the acceptable face of modern day metal.