evanescence- the open door
this review is heavily biased but i know i'm right :p
intro
i've been wanting to do a review of this album for YEARS now and i'm finally getting around to it! the open door is my favorite album ever and spoiler: this will absolutely get a 10/10. no skips, no dull moments, it's cohesive and full of emotion and it was truly ahead of its time. this album came out years after ben moody finally left the band and thus his creative decision to take their sound in a commercial direction left with him. terry balsamo was the perfect replacement for him and if i'm being honest he's a major reason why this band didn't fall apart after one album. him and amy collaborated a lot more with the writing than she did with ben, amy was in charge of the piano this time (yeah, amy isn't the one playing piano in fallen, that was mostly if not completely done by david hodges, who wind-up basically fired the second the album was done), and the environment was a lot less tense now that ben wasn't pushing amy around. as a result, we got an album that came from the heart with no intention of sticking to the same formula as all the chart toppers of the time. hard-hitting lyrics, guitars that did more than the standard rock song chords, a proper showcase of amys vocal range and power... i could really go on. this is probably one the best examples of their core sound and it holds up really well even to this day.
track-by-track
SWEET SACRIFICE:right off the bat, we get this dark, heavy banger for an opener. the effective use of her higher register adds so much to this song. the lyrics, which are about the same guy that going under was about *coughbencough* are incredible, you can tell amy was DONE. and the bridge, which if you know evanescence you'd know they have the best bridges, is insane. i love how there's layers to it; you have amy singing and underneath that you have her almost whispering this poem "i dream in darkness/i sleep to die/erase this silence/erase my life/our burning ashes/blacken the day/a world of nothingness/blow me away. it almost sounds like an old spell of sorts, it's haunting and beautiful and it fits perfectly within the song. 10/10CALL ME WHEN YOU'RE SOBER:that angry, powerful energy continues as amy rips her other ex boyfriend, shaun morgan, to shreds.