For Evanescence it was perhaps the biggest moment in their recording career so far and ten years on from the debut release of the incredible album Fallen, it remains a defining piece of music that doesn’t let go of the listener’s emotions and sensibilities untill long after the music has faded into the cold light of morning.
Fallen stands out as one of the finest albums of 2003 due to two incredible forces that collide with such strength that the fallout was there to be seen as soon as the recording and initial excitement had died down. Between Ben Moody, Amy Lee and David Hodges, the writing which throughout the album soars and tears at the walls of many genres is fuelled by a seemingly inexhaustible demand to give everything the band had in reserve to making Fallen be prominent, vocally superior to almost anything else around and be seen everywhere. The forces that drove this ethos that the band desired would see Ben Moody leave during the tour and in that moment it could be argued that Amy Lee lost part of herself.
The other thing that Fallen had going for it was the first single Bring Me To Life which thrust itself into the cultural wider world as part of the soundtrack to the Daredevil film that was released the same year. It was inspired and put the band firmly in the public eye. The song itself starts with the gentle refrain of a piano playing in a similar mode to Tori Amos at the start of her career, the gentle moment is lost as the crash of guitars and Amy Lee’s impressive voice demands more of the listener than they may have been expecting. The music doesn’t just announce itself; it breaks down every door, crashes through walls and blows in the windows in the same ferocity of a hurricane. In the end there are no causalities, there are no victims, just a stunned audience that has already fallen in love with the music.
Its dream like beginning, a nod to all Grimm fairy tales, sees Bring Me To Life do exactly that, it shakes the listener out of the stupor of the start of the 21st Century and the refrain of ‘Wake Me Up Inside’ alludes to the knowledge that inside all of us, humanity has been asleep whilst we have allowed awful things to happen to our fellow human beings and we have done nothing to stop it. As in My Immortal, there is a sense of loss throughout the song that goes deep into the listener’s understanding and enjoyment of the record. Amy Lee, joined by 12 Stones man Paul McCoy, talk of being saved from ‘the nothing I have become’ and pleading in the end to bring them to life. This is significant as they are not asking to come back to life which would suggest that they have been alive before but fallen into a human coma, not feeling or caring what goes on but rather that they have never been alive in the first place. This suggests that thought they have breathed and been part of life they haven’t been in it, they have never been awake to notice that the world has become bleak.
One of the most haunting singles of 2003 resides within the record and it comes as a surprise that My immortal was written by Ben Moody. The powerful piano and Amy Lee’s resonating vocals betray the magnificent scene laid out for the listener of a soul in torment, begging for the spirit of someone who is much loved but who still lingers around those who carry on living to leave and make their peace. It is haunting and it delves to a state of desperation of needing that person still in your life but wanting to go on living. Again the song plays on the fear within all of us of being a lost child, not physically lost but spiritually lost with a guiding light to urge us on. The personal demons that Amy Lee captures in Ben Moody’s writing are stamped throughout the intimidating lyrics and the loneliness that is framed is chilling and sombre.
It is perhaps the most perfect song on the album, even if it is not the most dynamic. Amy Lee really feels each word that she sings and the pain that the listener can imagine Ben Moody to be in as he writes the lyrics that are so deeply personal and seemingly engrained deep into his psyche. The ache of loss is striven through each line of the song and in a mind blowing finish; the lyrics show that even though that spirit of the departed has always been there, in the end we are all essentially alone.
Whether due to Ben Moody’s dramatic exit from the band, the illness that befell Terry Balsamo or the incredible and exhausting intensity that is needed to record an Evanescence album, the band haven’t hit the same kind of musical excellence that they did with their debut album, that though should not detract from what is an essential and outstanding recording. Amy Lee provides the momentum and inspiration, Ben Moody the drama and the rest of the band great quality music, in essence a beautifully crafted album which owes so much to the art of being able to tell a good story.
Ian D. Hall