Band History & Album Review: Evanescence returns with The Bitter Truth
musicserver.cz/clanek/65473/evanescence-the-bitter-truth/Released 26.04.2021 - Written by Jan Travnicek
Translated from Czech language to English by rionka (edited 12.04.2022) 
"Sometimes, among those tough challenges, the theme of the whole album suddenly came up, and we all got together. It's better to get things straight than giving up, even if it hurts."Three, five and ten years. For about so long, fans of the Arkansas band Evanescence have had to wait from the beginning of the millennium for their favorites to release a new album. Only a few band names can afford such long gaps between the releases, and little was missing and nothing would come out today. Amy & co however, did not let
their band fall.
Making fans wait ten years for a new record is uncommon. Especially in today's fast-paced era which favors singles and replaces young artists many times before they can even work on a groundbreaking third release. But Evanescence have several advantages. They released their debut
Fallen in the crucial year of 2003, which was a period when several bands that are still functional today, managed to break through just next to them: The Rasmus released
Dead Letters, The Black Eyed Peas succeeded with
Elephunk, Linkin Park demolished the charts with
Meteora, the clubs discovered Sean Paul's
Get Busy or 50 Cent's unforgettable
In Da Club and Britney Spears released her last truly hit album
In The Zone.And into a world where the former Mickey Mouse Club star plays a flight attendant and writhes in sequins in front of the camera, this 21-year-old
hurt girl with black painted eyes suddenly came - and sang about depression, anxiety, death and about the showbusiness fake facade. Their success was huge, and the band did not manage it well. Of all the members of that time, only the singer remained.
However, it was her extraordinary, characteristic voice that enabled the band to live through a de facto restart several times and work their way up to the eponymous third album
Evanescence, with which they came to see the Czech Republic live for the first time in 2012.
They promised that their next album would not last as long as a five-year delay, but that didn't happen. After the tour, Lee focused on making a movie soundtrack, raising a son, releasing a B-sides album
Lost Whispers, suing the original Wind-Up Records label, after which she became a fully independent artist, and released a few solo covers - for example, the beautiful ballad
Speak To Me among other things. She talked to the media about the fact that she ended up with music and no longer counts on returning to the studio. And yet, a few months later, she turned around again. The new piece was set to be released in 2017.
In the end, it happened - not just an experiment with electronic music that was suggested many times, but a full album release of older compositions for a symphony orchestra. The collection was named
Synthesis and shortly after an unforgettable live event in the
Congress Center Prague in 2018, it was also released as a live DVD. In the review at the time, we speculated on whether the bonus song
Imperfection would be enough success to finally get the announced "electronic" album by Evanescence. Today we already know that we will probably never get one.
At then end of 2019, for the release of Gears 5 for Xbox One, a cover version of
The Chain by Fleetwood Mac was released. And instead of a joint tour with Within Temptation, which fans called for many years, a virus arrived from China. Evanescence already started work on
The Bitter Truth at that time, therefore stopped again for a while, and in the end everything had to be completed remotely. Thanks to a guest appearance on the Bring Me The Horizon album, they managed to overcome the author's block.
The plan was to release a new piece in the spring of 2020, when we all still thought that
"covid would be over in the autumn". That's why the first official single
Wasted On You was released. In the video you can see members of Evanescence playing during the first lockdown in their homes. Few would expect a similar step from the band, who has always relied on a strong visual presentation of their songs. It was almost forgotten how it was a good song by itself.
After the July single
The Game Is Over and another postponement of the entire recording, a third piece was released in August. And
Use My Voice worked. The uncredited participation of Lindsey Stirling with singers from Halestorm, Veridia, The Pretty Reckless, Within Temptation and many others in the background vocals and the use of the song as an appeal to participate in the US elections ensured the band proper publicity - and when we will be able to have live shows again, it is clear that
Use My Voice becomes the highlight of the setlist.
You will probably guess who Amy Lee - who never commented on politics and, according to her, did not even follow - wished to win the presidential election. In another interview, however, the Arkansas native said that it was not just a political song. Its content could be interpreted as a support for the Black Lives Matter movement, or as an another effort to equalize women in society. The desired fourth album (technically fifth, but the singer said that she perceived it as the fourth) turned in the end and finally came out in March 2020, almost ten years after the previous one.
And although the first track
Artifact / The Truth could indicate a penchant for electronics, it's unfortunately only an intro to
Broken Pieces Shine where the artist goes back to a time when she wanted to disband the band. This is the beginning of a story, because it is still very important for Lee not only to release albums, but also to compose songs on them conceptually so the story makes sense. Despite various difficulties, blaming others, selling out your souls, partner dependencies and the inevitability of saying goodbye, which are all themes of the following songs, Amy finally turns to hope and ends with
Blind Belief with the words:
Love over all.
The record as a whole is classic Evanescence, as we know it. The production was again provided by a producer and a friend Nick Raskulinecz, which is good news for those who like the band that sounds hard and guitar, but worse news for those who like different sound details, strings or small experiments, which happened on the first two releases.
Only one piano ballad on the new album will satisfy in this respect - the memory of the singer's deceased brother in
Far From Heaven. Fairytale arrangements accompany the story from 2018. And even if the new ballad doesn't match the older ones, it can enchant you beautifully. After all, when Amy played it to her father at Christmas, he cried. Unfortunately, it does not have a hit potential.
There are other songs which all have something to offer. Among them should be emphasized
Yeah Right, whose origins date back to 2011.
Take Cover, where the producer Steve Lillywhite participated in its time and which the musicians performed live for the first time in in 2016. The song didn't get on the album at the time because of the label, who said it "doesn't sound like typical Evanescence". The same happened to
Feeding The Dark.
Although Lillywhite's quest for more electronic direction ended with the project cancellation
["broken record" - translator's note] and the subsequent creation of the third eponymous album from scratch (which was the label decision), today in all three cases paradoxically, Evanescence bring the same rock flavor that was so resisted at the time.
We can end this with
Part Of Me which is like a hidden gem almost at the end of the footage. Amy returns once again to her brother, who has been ill for practically her entire career, only here she finally tries to look at the story differently, get up and start living again.
And finally, Evanescence live too. Despite all the difficulties, they managed to return to the stage with a very decent collection of new songs - and the greatest merits belong to their fans. The frontwoman made it known that if it weren't for the last tour, where the band visited
Pilsen, Brno and Rock For People
[in Czech Republic], they might not have start recording again. However, the fans did not forget about their favorite band and during the whole tour they sold out most of the venues even though the setlist consisted only of old hits. This confirmed that it made sense to continue - and the stuck wheels were able to spin again. Very well.
