Evanescence Announce First New Album in Nine Years, Debut First Single
I’m not the world’s biggest Evanscence fan, but I’ve certainly warmed to them in my old age — particularly when they do pretty, sad shit, like “Lithium” (not a Nirvana cover) and “The Chain” (a Fleetwood Mac cover). Put another way: I appreciate Evanescence the pop band with hard rock elements more than I do Evanescence the nu-metal band.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that I dig “Wasted on You,” the first single from the band’s first new album of new material in nine years, The Bitter Truth. It’s a power ballad. Not a kinda-sorta power ballad, like Trivium’s “Bleed Into Me” or any number of Killswitch Engage songs. I mean it’s a straight-up modern day take on the power ballad. It is — as I said before of other Evanescence songs I enjoy — pretty and sad… especially because, by vocalist Amy Lee’s own admission, the lyrics (“I can’t move on/ Feels like we’re frozen in time”) have taken on new meaning in light of the coronavirus epidemic:
“‘Wasted On You’ wasn’t the song we were planning to release first, but when the whole world went into indefinite lockdown and everything changed, so did the feeling and meaning of what we wanted to say right now. I didn’t write these lyrics about what we’re all now going through, but somehow that’s exactly what they are.”
As for The Bitter Truth, the band and their label, BMG, are taking an interesting approach to the release strategy: they’re releasing it piecemeal over the course of this year. Lee explains:
“As far as business is concerned, this is considered a terrible time to release. But we believe that people need music now more than ever. We do, and we’re not going to wait to share it because who knows what tomorrow brings. Who knows if it even comes? This is who we really are and we’re calling out across the world for a connection.”
I’m glad that Evanescence, like August Burns Red, are putting the fans ahead of concerns about commerce. I hope this is the norm moving forward, because I think we’re all gonna be stuck inside to some degree or another for a long, long while.
You can check out “Wasted on You” below. There’s also a music video going live at noon EDT, which each band member filmed from their respective home while in quarantine, Cattle Decap-style, before passing onto Paul Brown for editing. The embed is at the bottom of this post although, again, you’ll have to wait until a few hours after this story is published.
