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Evanescence: The open door
29/09/06 || Lord K Philipson
All you bitches know how much I loved Evanescence’s last album “Fallen”, don’t you? To be completely honest, that disc has started to bore me a little nowadays after 12 billion, or so, listens. It’s about fucken time the ho and the fags of this band gets another album out, to show the world that their debut (update October 1st: I recently got a mail from some fag calling him/itself Sharon Lovesk, “Loves K” – how extremely witty, stating that “Fallen” isn’t their debut and bla bla bla… I really should have written major label debut. How unproffesional of me) wasn’t just a lucky shot at stardom, coke, penises and vaginas. The time has come for “The open door” to sell millions and millions. And it’s quite nice that this album is actually released in just a few days, on October 3rd, which is my birthday. Say “congratulations you beautiful, beautiful man” or I’ll go Matt Hughes on yer ass.
But, age aside… I have looked forward to hear this album for quite some time since I have a huge thing (and this time I’m not referring to anything that could possibly be located in a pair of pants) for Amy’s voice. Call it bad taste, bad luck or bad hair-day, but I love that fucken girl’s voice.
So, what has Evanescence cooked up this time around? Will it be on par with the debut? Can they manage without songwriter Ben Moody? Will it answer to all the fancy words Amy Lee’s been throwing around to hype the album to the extreme? Can I pee in Amy’s butt?
After a few listens, I’m not completely convinced.
I have gone thru this piece quite a bunch of times now over the last few weeks and I’m stuck here, with penis in hand and WWII helmet on, feeling a little confused. “The open door” shows something that could be labeled as a more “mature” direction for the band. But still it sounds the same. Do the math. It’s definitely not striking a chord with me as “Fallen” did the first time I heard it. And the first single, “Call me when you are full of pee”, didn’t catch my interest at all. Not even the semi-nice chorus could save that track for me and my expectations for this album started to drop faster than Lars Ulrich’s hair after he said he was proud of “St. Anger”. That’s what lying do to some people. Especially if they come in the shape of a disgusting little man from Denmark.
But fuck Lars Ulrich and fuck Denmark…
Opener “Sweet sacrifice” is a real good song and it’s quite possibly the best tune on the whole album. I’ll just leave it at that. “Call me when you wanna pee in my butt” is, as mentioned, not good at all and the too obvious AutoTuner used in the beginning is irritating as fuck. “Weight of the world” is catchy and holds a really strong verse, though the track loses a bit of its potential with the pretty weak chorus. “Lithium” is moving forward as a snail buried in concrete and doesn’t do much impact on me. Basic, radio-friendly and very anonymous. It doesn’t even hold a good chorus, which usually is the norm for Evanescence. It just drags and drags along during its (close to) 4 minutes. Thumbs pointing straight to hell.
“Cloud nine” is another downer. A complete filler, if you will. And there are quite a few of those here unfortunately. Close to halfway into the album we are greeted with “Snow white queer” (yes, that was intentional). At this point, the album has really started to lose its (much hoped for) flare. 3 slow songs in a row is nothing Krisiun would be proud of. I yawn my way thru this one as well. And then I smoke some crack. “Lacrymosa” is using some very “I have done this exact vocal line before” things by Amy. Take a listen to “Call me when you are fucken drunk” and compare it to this one. There you go.
“Like you” borrows the chugga-chugga pattern from opener “Sweet sacrifice” before turning into a complete whiner. Boring. “Lose control” is not making me do just that even if I really dig what Amy’s doing vocal-wise in the intro. Finally things turn to the better after the last 400 tracks of syrup and honey. I dig this tune. The very nice sing-along thing in the end is definitely made with concerts in mind. I buy it. Alice DeeJay did a song called “The only one” on her fantastic album “Who needs guitars anyway?”. I don’t think I have to say which one I rather play. This is another pure paint-by-numbers Evanescence piece.
“Your star” starts off with a shitty piano’n’vocals thing for too many minutes, but fortunately picks up a bit after that. Nice chorus for sure, and the piano-break in the middle is really beautiful. This specific part, when the guitars comes in and all, is probably my fave bit on the whole album. Extremely nice choirs in the background as well, sounding more Within Temptation than Within Temptation themselves. When you get thru the first half of the song it really starts to stand out and eventually ends up being the second strongest tune here after opener “Sweet sacrifice”.
“All that I’m living for” is not only a declaration of Amy’s love for me, it’s also a decent track with a fantastic and overwhelming more-sticky-than-glue-mixed-with-more-glue chorus. This exact part saves the song from being yet another failure. Closer “Good enough” is another obviously too AutoTune’d offering that fucken blows. Save the worst for last, huh?
No matter the amount of weak material on this thing, I still love Amy Lee’s voice even though I prefer how she sounds on “Fallen”. The AutoTuner is too obvious in some parts and hearing it being used is among the worst things I know when it comes to vocals. I could hear it on “Fallen” (and the preceeding demos) as well, but it wasn’t as evident on those. Amy’s vocals (face it, this band is all about her vocals. That, and her tits) sound pretty naked on this one, and I like that. It’s a very in-yo-face experience for the listener.
No matter how much I would like it to, “The open door” is not answering to my expectations. And that fucken sucks.
6.5/10.
- Information
- Released: 2006
- Label: Wind-Up Records
- Website: www.evanescence.com
- Band
- John LeCompt: guitar
- Terry Balsamo: guitar
- Will Boyd: bass
- Rocky Gray: drums
- Amy Lee: vocals
- Tracklist
- 01. Sweet Sacrifice
- 02. Call Me When You’re Sober
- 03. Weight Of The World
- 04. Lithium
- 05. Cloud Nine
- 06. Snow White Queen
- 07. Lacrymosa
- 08. Like You
- 09. Lose Control
- 10. The Only One
- 11. Your Star
- 12. All That I’m Living For
- 13. Good Enough
