The Open Door

After enjoying enormous success with 2003’s <i>Fallen</i>, Evanescence underwent an upheaval that led to co-founder Ben Moody’s departure from the band. Taking the creative reins firmly in hand, singer Amy Lee reorganized the group and made <i>The Open Door</i> (2006) into a personal tour-de-force. Unlike the more vaguely-defined anguish of the band’s previous album, the songs here are rooted in specific situations and real-life heartbreak. The Gothic melodrama and spiritual anxiety that gave <i>Fallen</i> such a distinctive atmosphere is still ever-present; what’s been added is a contemporary immediacy in songs like “Call Me When You're Sober” and “Snow White Queen,” both detailing struggles with obsessive, self-destructive love. Tracks like the Middle Eastern-influenced “Sweet Sacrifice” and the string-laden, slightly cacophonous “Lacrymosa” come from a more exotic place. Sonically, <i>The Open Door</i> frames Lee’s soaring, swooning vocals in dense and distorted textures, achieving a particularly unnerving luster on “Cloud Nine.” Newly-recruited guitarist Terry Balsamo adds both metal-tinged muscle and subtler dabs of sonic color at key moments, and for all its probing of desperate human need, <i>The Open Door</i> manages to reach exalted heights of feeling, beautiful with bruised desire.