Reviews in Brief: Evanescence, Fallen

Back to music, and I am starting a definite campaign to make these really "in brief," so look for brevity, substance, and (hopefully) wit.



















Someone called them "goth metal," and that makes sense to me. Fallen was Evanescence's first studio release, and it's a strong one. I ran across them on one of my YouTube jaunts. That video is at the end of this review, followed by the second one that grabbed me. At that point, I had to get the CD. Was captivated. It took about a week of sort-of listening before I twigged to the fact that the song in question, "My Last Breath," is about suicide. (I wasn't really paying attention to the lyrics.) Come to think of it, their strongest songs on this album are about suicide (I'm thinking also of "Tourniquet"). Not something I like to contemplate (it's been a long time since I've been a depressed teenager). But the music is compelling, Amy Lee's vocals are always apt, sometimes astonishing -- she's really flexible and has a lot of power behind her -- Ben Moody is strong support, and the images the songs call up are potent and sometimes staggering.

This is another one of those albums that doesn't have a song I dislike. The test, of course, is the low-key stuff -- "My Immortal" is beautiful, "Hello" is poignant, and both reveal the sophistication of this group. ("This group" includes a host of back-up artists, all turning in excellent performances.)

And it's music that gets to you. At least, it gets to me: it's another one that has hogged my playlist for weeks, displacing Backstreet Boys' Unbreakable (which I'm going to comment on here soon, I promise). Fallen ranges from metal to pop and goes a lot of interesting places in between -- as always, I like the way they layer textures, pass phrases around (although that's not as complex as Nickelback), work the dynamics.

The fun stuff. This one is "My Last Breath" as the soundtrack to an AMV from Winter Cicada:



The AMV is very well done, too.

And this one is "Imaginary," backing an AMV from Mirage of Blaze:



Stray thought for the day: I wonder how much impact these songs would have had on me if I had first heard them without the videos. I am strongly affected by music (and I don't think I'm at all unique in that) and by images (ditto). The combination sometimes can be overpowering. And of course, the best music is that which calls forth my own images.

But, I will continue to surf YouTube on occasion and suffer the consequences.