Amy Lee's New Covers

While Evanescence hasn't been releasing new material lately, lead vocalist Amy Lee has been involved in plenty of projects. She's been scoring indie films (War Story, Hammerstep's Indigo Grey) and has penned the theme song for Voice from the Stone (which has yet to be released). But recently, she began a YouTube channel and started covering songs from an interesting variety of artists - I immediately loved this idea and wanted to share what she's done so far! And what's perhaps even more interesting? I'm not a fan of any of the originals she's transformed, but I really like her new versions.

While it would be easy to imagine someone who looks like a goth-rocker to only listen to music that's dark or theatrical, fans know that Amy has an interesting taste in music. I always think that my tastes are really eclectic, but then I remember what she listens to. She may be in a rock band, but she's got a soft spot for electronic and trip-hop, so it was no surprise that the first cover she released was a Portishead song.

This first cover is actually my favorite. It's the closest to anything Amy's done before - a piano-led ballad that features some nice cello parts. It's such a fitting song for Amy to sing considering how the lyrics comfort and motivate (that's what Evanescence songs do for most fans): "'Cause this life is a farce / I can't breathe through this mask like a fool / So breathe on, sister, breathe on." By the time she whispers "sister" at the end my heart drops.



The next song she covered is one everyone seems to love even though I've always kind of hated it: "With or Without You" by U2. Even though I adore Jackie Evancho and Scala and Kolacny Brothers, I wasn't a fan of either of their covers either, but Amy's is the one that finally struck a chord with me. This one is more electronic - fans of both "Lockdown" and the epic backing vocals in "Lose Control" will appreciate how haunting it is. Somehow her rendition depicts struggle more than all the others.



The last cover Amy has shared with us is of Led Zeppelin's "Going to California." Recently Evanescence reunited to perform in three U.S. cities as well as Ozzfest in Japan and they played this cover at all the shows. Even though Amy's mellow tracks usually have piano or electronic roots, this cover only features acoustic guitars - what a nice surprise! While it's not exactly my favorite, it's very peaceful. La critica le gusta!



We don't have any more covers as of yet, but I hope they keep coming. Amy Lee is a highly creative individual - no matter what musical project she's signed herself up for, I'll be watching and I'll be supporting.

Hammerstep's Short Film Features Score by Amy Lee of Evanescence

Amy Lee of Evanescence has joined forces with Dave Eggar and Chuck Palmer to create another dark and beautiful film score. In the past they composed a score for the indie film War Story and released the music on an album called Aftermath, which I thoroughly appreciated. This time, they composed music for a project called Indigo Grey: The Passage, which is a short film by Hammerstep, a visually stunning dance group seen on America's Got Talent. The newly-released film features some lovely snippets from Aftermath, but the spotlight is on the new songs that Hammerstep dances to. Granted, the film is only seven minutes long - we don't have a lot of new material from the classical-contemporary trio, but what we have is pretty damn good. While Aftermath was very brooding, the music for this film was made to dance to and has more electronic influences; therefore, it has more of a sense of urgency.

"Resurrection," a song Lee fans may recognize from YouTube clips of her performance with her collaborators at Bluegrass Underground, is one of the most prominent tracks. Personally, I can testify that this is one of my favorite songs EVER, and I'm so happy we can hear parts of the studio version now. And of course, Hammerstep's choreography is always fun to watch. The concept is simple and appropriate for its tiny time slot - whether someone watches it for Hammerstep or Lee and the guys, they should be content with the final product.

Lee, Eggar, and Palmer have won the Moondance International Award for Best Score. Evanescence fans, be proud.

2014: The Year of Female-Fronted Metal

From left to right: Sharon den Adel of Within Temptation, Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil, Simone Simons of Epica, Dianne van Giersbergen of Xandria, Elize Ryd of Amaranthe.

It's no secret that 2014 was a huge year for female-fronted metal bands. Nearly all of the biggest names ranging from metalcore to symphonic metal released an album this year, with the exception of Nightwish, who are preparing to release their first studio album with Floor Jansen next year. I listen to so many of the groups that had new releases this year, so my ears were made quite happy by a portion of these albums. Even when an album seemed to fall flat in my opinion, it's always wonderful to anticipate new releases from favorite artists.

Right at the beginning of the year symphonic metal fans had a reason to be excited with Within Temptation's Hydra. With a killer lead single and a tantalizing album trailer, I was counting down the days until a copy would be in my hands. Every one of Within Temptation's albums tend to sound different from one another, and Hydra is no exception. The sound is heavier than the previous album and there's plenty of variety; between "Silver Moonlight," a song with growls like in the days of Enter and The Dance EP; "And We Run," a duet with rapper Xzibit; and "Edge of the World," an extremely powerful ballad with an intense second half. Within Temptation impressed me once again.

 

A few more albums were released in the spring, starting with Lacuna Coil's Broken Crown Halo. I overall have respect for Lacuna Coil, but a lot of their songs are hit-and-miss for me. This was generally the case for Broken Crown Halo (that poor, unfortunate album title) though I see it as a step of improvement from Dark Adrenaline, with highlights like "Nothing Stands in Our Way" and "I Burn in You." Epica, on the other hand completely floored me with The Quantum Enigma. This album is phenomenal. It's easily my favorite of 2014; it was in my CD player for two months straight and has made plenty of trips back in there since then. I'm not exaggerating. Catchy and complex tracks fill this album in a way that puts it in the same league as even The Divine Conspiracy and Design Your Universe, and the way everything is mixed sounds so crisp!

 

Also in the spring, Xandria released their latest album, Sacrificium. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to really listen to this album yet aside from three tracks, but from what I've heard thus far, I'm sure it's a great piece of work. While I'd always heard of Xandria, I never heard many of their songs. I know they've had quite a few singers in their past, and I'm sure they were all fine musicians, but I never heard them receive so much unabashed praise until Dianne van Giersbergen joined. Based on what I've heard, I can understand why. Her voice is very well-honed and very beautiful.

 

Fast forward to October: the still up-and-coming modern metal band Amaranthe released Massive Addictive, the third studio album they've recorded since their debut in 2011. I only began listening to their music this year, and while Massive Addictive has a number of incredible tracks, like "Dynamite," "Digital World," "Massive Addictive," and "Drop Dead Cynical," I just don't hear enough variety between many of their songs. Not bad, but they could be better.

 

The final major release of the year is the one that manage to truly disappoint me: Black Widow by In This Moment. I've been listening to this metalcore band since 2007 and have therefore been a fan for seven years, but I only liked about two songs from Black Widow. They're trying too hard to form an image and I find the music under par for my taste.

 

In addition, metal fans were treated to a wonderful cover of "The Power of Love" that we were to donate money to purchase in order to raise money for the Red Cross. This single consisted of several Dutch metal artists, including Simone Simons, Dianne van Giersbergen, Anneke van Giersbergen, Floor Jansen, Charlotte Wessels, and more. Within Temptation released their fourth live DVD of two shows in late fall called Let Us Burn: Elements and Hydra Live in Concert, and DVD releases from them will always get me pumped since they're one of the best live acts EVER. Delain and Tarja also released albums this year (I don't listen to either much), and even though she isn't part of the metal world, many fans of female-fronted metal enjoy Amy Lee's music, and she released Aftermath (containing songs from a movie she scored called War Story). Unfortunately nothing new from Nightwish was released in 2014, but their next album is scheduled for the first half of 2015. This will be their first album with Floor Jansen, and while I always get excited to hear new music from them, I am especially excited to hear how their music will evolve with Floor.

But alas, 2014 completely spoiled female-fronted metal fans so much that I'm afraid next year may seem anti-climatic in comparison. Just think of the loads and loads of new music we got this year! I can't imagine a niche audience ever being so pleased. 2014 will certainly be remembered for its remarkable set of releases.

Aftermath | Amy Lee

Evanescence vocalist Amy Lee has released a few solo covers over the years, including "Sally's Song" from the album Nightmare Revisited (a collection of covers of the music from The Nightmare Before Christmas) and "Halfway Down the Stairs" from Muppets: The Green Album. (Yes. Muppets.) Until now, we never had any other solo songs aside from those two. Now that Lee is free of a record label, she can basically do whatever she wants, and in this case, she decided to release her first solo album, Aftermath. 

 

Aftermath is not an Evanescence record in any sense; it contains music from and inspired by a film she recently scored with Dave Eggar and Chuck Palmer, War Story. (Needless to say, if you haven't been keeping up with interviews of Lee over the course of the year, you've got a lot to catch up on.) Hence, Aftermath doesn't have a lot of Amy Lee's signature, strong vocals and instead has a lot of mood-setting instrumental tracks. Please be aware that this isn't a rock album; it's pieces of a cello and piano-oriented score with some electronic moments here and there. I couldn't have been happier to buy this album; I absolutely love music like this and wanted to see what Lee could do with music like this. As I expected, she definitely works well with this genre.

 

The first track is probably the one most likely to shock people that are unaware of Amy Lee's many electronic influences, but alas, she wrote a pop/electronic song! "Push the Button," which is used in a sex scene in War Story, definitely has sex appeal with its poetic lyrics and all the ethereal vocalizing. It's the album's fun song, and it's the only one on Aftermath that doesn't feature Dave Eggar or a guest vocalist. Later in the album, "Can't Stop What's Coming" also has more of an electronic vibe, not nearly in the same way as "Push the Button." "Can't Stop What's Coming" isn't as much of a proper song as it is a piece in the score, for even though Lee is singing in it, the structure is very different. It's softer, like trip-hop, and even though I don't oppose the style of the song, "Can't Stop What's Coming" is definitely my least favorite as it's a little too subtle for me to willingly listen to apart from listening to a score straight through.

There's still a couple more songs that including singing, but only one of them has Lee's voice. "Dark Water" features the vocalist Malika Zarra, and it has an exotic feel that isn't found anywhere else on the album. Lee sings on "Lockdown," which has the best chance of appealing to anyone who loves Evanescence regardless if they enjoy listening to film scores. This song is the most typical in song structure, but it certainly isn't ordinary. It has electronic elements that remind me of the album Origin, Lee's voice is gorgeous and soft in the verses, but then that chorus... The first time we hear it, it's like slow motion. Her voice takes over and the (still quite interesting) instrumentation dies down a bit. In the rest of the choruses, however, we even get to hear some electric guitars and prominent drums. It's a great song, and it's definitely a highlight from the album that everyone should check out.
 

But as I said before, this album has a lot of cello and piano-dominated instrumental tracks, and overall, they're what I love most about this album. "White Out" and "Remember to Breathe" are the first two of this style. While "White Out" seems to embody a state of wandering alone and gives us a subtle taste of what to expect throughout Aftermath, "Remember to Breathe" is stagnant, desolate. The way it describes emotion will tug on heart strings, for it doesn't try to be beautiful as much as it simply is in its emotional state. It reminds me a bit of the darker, quitter moments of Dario Marinelli's 2011 Jane Eyre score.

 

"Between Worlds" is an incredible cello piece; it's one of my favorites, without a doubt, and so "Voice in My Head." These songs are the two teasers that Lee showed us on her YouTube channel in the weeks before the album was released, and they're two of the three longest instrumental pieces. They do more than describe the feel of scenes; they show off a little more. "Voice in My Head" is primarily piano-led, but the cello intermingles and becomes more prominent about halfway through.

The other instrumental tracks include "Drifter," is a very subtle piece and overall doesn't do as much for me as the other instrumental tracks. "After" closes the album, and it's a lot like "Remember to Breathe." I'm sure it's a fantastic way to close a film (although I haven't seen War Story and cannot confirm if this is the last song or not, but I hope it is). There's such an ache, but also such resolution... I wasn't the craziest about it on the first listen, but then the beauty of it really set in.

 

And that's Aftermath. Oftentimes subtle but always full of passion in a dark haze... This album makes me want to write. It makes me want to sit and contemplate. Amy Lee, Dave Eggar, and Chuck Palmer have all done a wonderful job. Granted, there were a few songs that I didn't fall head over heels in love with, but Aftermath is undeniably a quality album. Considering that Amy Lee touched it, I'm not surprised; I expected nothing less, and I can't wait to hear what else she may have in store for us later on whether its film scores, Evanescence, or solo material in general.

Evanescence's "Lost in Paradise" Video Includes Live Footage from Fans!

Evanescence loves their fans! This was definitely the best way to capture the song's meaning, in my opinion. Seeing the outfit Amy wore to my show kind of makes me feel represented even though I didn't submit a video. I'm so happy we did indeed get a video of some sort for this pretty song.