Evanescence - The Open Door

My dad likes to plan vacations and never take them. He plans every single detail of a vacation, has every minute down on a specific schedule, but then never actually does the things he planned. Don’t get the idea that he doesn’t follow through with things; that’s definitely not true. No, he does it on purpose. He never has any intention of going on these trips. He likes the planning. He gets so much more excited over the build-up to a trip than the actual trip, that he figures he can plan vacations and never take them. It’s a good plan, actually. The excitement beforehand is what he enjoys, not the actual event. With the release of The Open Door, and the entire hubbub beforehand, I finally understand what he means.

I cannot express enough how absolutely great an album Fallen was. Evanescence was a fresh face that breathed new life into the dismal world of goth rock. So naturally, the excitement for their next album was very high. I remember that for about three months beforehand, ever since “Call Me When You’re Sober” came out, I was so elated that the wait for a new Evanescence album was finally going to come to an end. And once it did, I sorta wanted to go back to those days.

Ben Moody has made a hasty exit, and with him went a lot of catchiness and pop sensibilities, I’m sad to say. The Open Door is really Amy Lee’s definitive work, and it sounds like a woman carving out her place in a man’s world, and that’s totally cool. Moody leaving the band was the best thing for the band on an interpersonal level, as Lee’s and Moody’s personalities had just grown too far apart. However, with Moody went a piece of what made Evanescence them. It’s just sad that Lee’s personal journey is better without Moody, but her musical capacity seems incomplete.

I’m making it sound like The Open Door is a terrible album when it’s not; it’s actually pretty good. It’s just that Fallen was so singularly awesome. When they’re compared to each other, which is not only unavoidable but appropriate, The Open Door comes up wicked short. “Sweet Sacrifice” opens the album on an intense but tuneless note. It’s clear that the beautiful creepiness Fallen had is still intact, and Evanescence still has that perfect mixture of the hard and soft. “Call Me When You’re Sober,” let’s be honest, could be better. I still like it, and it really is the best choice for a first single. But Amy Lee’s liberating honesty is great for her, but not doing a whole lot for her audience. “Weight of the World” and “Cloud Nine” have great guitar and keyboard parts, and the band really comes together as a unit on these two songs. On other parts of the album, though, it really seems like the Amy Lee Show. “Lithium,” the next single, is impassioned and heartfelt, but sadly has a lack of hooks. A lot of songs on the album are like that, actually. The intentions behind them are good, but they don’t quite do it. There is simply nothing on the album as poignantly heavy as “Everybody’s Fool,” as hauntingly beautiful as “Hello,” or as deliciously unsettling as “Haunted.”

Like I said, The Open Door is a good album, but a very disappointing one. The only reason it’s disappointing is that Fallen was so spectacular. It’s a case of the sophomore slump, pure and simple. So the next album will really make or break the deal. Typically, when the sophomore slump plays out, the third album is either stellar or even more disappointing. We’ll see which road Evanescence takes.

Prime Cuts:
Cloud Nine
Call Me When You’re Sober
The Only One
Weight of the World

22 Rating: 9