Evanescence Review in the Wild - FuckIt 6: Death To Cringe
text: Sarah Andrew
published in the zine:
FUCKIT 6: Death to Cringefound at:
www.reddit.com/r/Evanescence/comments/r6pgs9/evanescence_review_in_the_wild/transcript +
imgur photos by
eiriee and
Karen Sorenson(another hand made fan zine about Fallen is here)
Transcript:
REVIEW OF EVANESCENCE'S THE BITTER TRUTH
It doesn't seem like Evanescence should still be around. Their debut album Fallen came out over eighteen years ago. Aside from singer Amy Lee, none of the members who worked on that album are still with the band. Their last album of new music came out nearly a decade ago. And let's be real, Evanescence is more of a joke than a band nowadays. Popular internet culture mostly associates them with the goth/emo/scene/whatever culture of the early 00s: WAKE ME UP INSIDE memes, black eyeliner, overly emotional teenage girls, etc. And that's not even getting into the infamous My Immortal fanfic.
So Evanescence releasing a new album a year into an unprecedented pandemic? Kind of sounds like a joke. But it's true! Evanescence's The Bitter Truth was released on March 26, 2021. And despite their status as a meme, their music is still good, and relevant.
The album starts with an introduction track, 'Artifact/The Turn'. It is mostly instrumental and slow-growing, eventually morphing into the first real song 'Broken Pieces Shine. The album mostly stays loud from there. Some songs, such as standout 'Feeding the Dark', are reminiscent of the mysterious atmosphere of Fallen. Others take more of a straight rock approach, like 'Yeah Right. Aside from the one ballad, 'Far From Heaven', the album stays high-energy with lyrics about defiance, survival, and the truth.
Possibly the biggest problem with the album is the mixing. It can at times be hard to hear vocals against the loud instruments, particularly when Lee is singing in her lower register. Sometimes it feels as if the singing isn't as big as it needs to be, which could point to a problem in writing and composition as well. As a result it doesn't hit the emotional heights it could.
The lyrics of The Bitter Truth are a departure from earlier work because of their decrease in imagery. Gone are references to forests and hollow trees, to the mechanical lights of Lisbon. The wordings here are much more direct. Personally I miss the allegories and complex lyrical ideas, but this change was a conscious decision on Lee's part. She told Kerrang! Magazine "I'm peeling away more of the layers of imagery and really being specific at times, just saying what I really need to get off my chest." And truly, that's the main idea behind the album as a whole.
Lee has stated that they wanted to release The Bitter Truth last year. Like pretty much everything in the world those plans got derailed by the pandemic. 'Wasted on You' seemed relevant to the moment, so it became the first single and got a music video shot by the band members on their iPhones in lockdown. The song's chorus gives us a title drop: "I can't move on//It feels like I'm frozen inside//I'm wasted on you//Just pass me the bitter truth"
That last line is in a lot of ways the album's thesis statement. 'Broken Pieces Shine' and "The Game Is Over' are about accepting one's own flaws and not pretending anymore. Multiple other songs are about escaping someone else's lies. "You can't lie//'Cause I know all your secrets" warns 'Feeding the Dark'.
The desire for truth has come up in Evanescence's lyrics before. But past lyrics also have many instances being drawn to falsehoods. Fallen's 'Imaginary' and 'Hello' both deal with living in fantasies to escape the traumatic real world. 'If You Don't Mind' (a cut song from The Open Door, eventually released on the Lost Whispers b-side album) makes the desire explicit: "I would like to live the lie that I will survive." These lyrics would never fit on The Bitter Truth. The one time Lee sings about escaping the real world through fantasies is in 'Far From Heaven': "Dreaming makes for sweet escape but I can't forget." Any relief provided by fantasies is ultimately fruitless.
A lot of the truths presented on the album involve Lee's own experiences in the music industry. For the first time she addresses the sexism she's faced. 'Better Without You' begins with the perspective of others looking at her: "You're not in control//'Cause this is my world, little girl." In "Take Cover, Lee declares she is "gonna be the bitch you make me out to be". They may be grouped with other Hot Topic-esque bands of the early 00s-Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Korn, etc. - but Evanescence stands out for the obvious yet overlooked fact that Face of the Band Amy Lee is a woman. When Lee launched to stardom in 2003 she became one of the most visible
~different~ women in US culture. It feels cheesy to say that mattered, but I was twelve when Fallen topped the charts. I had never been exposed to womens' art that was so blatantly dark. Britney Spears sang that her loneliness was killing her, but you weren't supposed see it that deep. Lee wore black and sang "I've been alone all along" and it felt like recognition and validation. For a lot of girls, it was the first time they had seen a woman be so dramatic and unhappy without being hidden by a manufactured pink pop persona. Hearing Lee acknowledge experiencing sexism feels like another validation.
I mean, yeah, the 'overemotional teenage girls' part of the 00s scene culture didn't come out of nowhere. Maybe teenage girls had a lot to be emotional about. Girls writing songfics to 'My Immortal' is seen as cringey, but why? The song got overexposed, sure, but it's mostly because society doesn't want to pay attention to the emotions of women and girls.
Lee addresses power structures again in 'Use My Voice! "Label me bitch because I dare to draw my own line//Burn every bridge and build a wall in my way//But I will use my voice". A political message actually ends the album as well. The last track asks "Blind belief, are you afraid to see//That our fathers were wrong?//We hold the key to redemption//Love over all."
And of course that's relevant. Many of the songs were written during the Trump administration, but even if they weren't, ideas like admitting fault, accepting truth, and defiance toward power are always relevant. It doesn’t matter that they’re coming from a band that isn’t always taken seriously.
The Bitter Truth is not a perfect album, but its shortcomings are made up for by exciting rock instrumentals and lyrics about the importance of fighting back. That’s not embarrassing to me. To quote track 2, “Shamelessly by who we are//And let all the broken pieces shine.” Pass me the bitter truth. Death to cringe.
Sarah Andrew
