Evanescence is the third studio album by American rock band Evanescence, released on October 7, 2011 by Wind-up Records. The band began writing the album in June 2009. Its release was delayed several times; on February 22, 2010, the band entered the studio with producer Steve Lillywhite but later stopped working with him because he "wasn't the right fit". At the time the album was scheduled for an August or September 2010 release, but lead singer Amy Lee later announced that Evanescence had postponed recording to write more material. In April 2011, they returned to the studio with producer Nick Raskulinecz. Evanescence is the first Evanescence album to be written as a band, with Lee, guitarists Terry Balsamo and Troy McLawhorn, bassist Tim McCord and drummer Will Hunt co-writing the music together. It is the last album the band recorded under Wind-Up.
According to Lee, the band brought influences from Björk, Depeche Mode, Massive Attack, MGMT, and Portishead to the album. Evanescence songs contain sounds and influences characteristic of nu metal, hard rock, and symphonic metal. The album received generally positive reviews from music critics, and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart with 127,000 copies sold in its first week. It also topped four other Billboard charts: Rock Albums, Digital Albums, Alternative Albums, and Hard Rock Albums. The album was successful worldwide, appearing on the charts of over 20 countries. The band promoted Evanescence by premiering songs online on a number of websites and appearing on several television shows.
The first single from the album, "What You Want", was released on August 9, 2011; "My Heart Is Broken", the album's second single, was released on November 11. "Lost in Paradise" was released internationally as its third single on May 25, 2012, and "The Other Side" was serviced to US modern rock radio stations as a promotional single on June 11. In 2011 the band embarked on the Evanescence Tour, their third worldwide tour, to promote the album with The Pretty Reckless and Fair to Midland.
Background After finishing the tour for Evanescence's previous album, The Open Door, Amy Lee stated that she "didn't know what [she] was going to do next", and took a break to live life away from the industry. During this period, she spent time painting, listened to folk and indie music, and learned to play the harp. After about 18 months, she began writing music again. At the beginning of 2009, she wrote a song with her friend programmer Will "Science" Hunt that was in an electronic direction, which inspired her to bring some of that sound into the next Evanescence album. Lee and Hunt worked on programming-driven music at her home studio and in Texas. In the early sessions, she went into the studio with producer Steve Lillywhite, who had contacted Evanescence's record label wanting to work with her. In a June 2009 post on the Evanescence website, Lee wrote that the band was writing material for an album planned for release the following year. In November 2009, the band played two one-off shows in New York and Brazil. Lee said that she "ended up falling back in love with Evanescence again" and collaborated with the rest of the band, with the album becoming "a group project."
Recording Evanescence and Will "Science" Hunt entered the studio with producer Steve Lillywhite on February 22, 2010 to begin recording the album. Sessions took place in MSR Studios, New York. Lee described the album in progress as "sounds that are distorted, changed, reversed", with moments "that are amazingly heavy, but then there are moments that are completely stripped down", and cited Bjork, Nine Inch Nails, and music with a lot of programming as inspiration. She said that the idea was to "take synthetic and atmospheric sounds and find a way to blur the line between organic and synthetic","A radio interview with Amy Lee – The Hill-Man Morning Show (WAAF)". WAAF. Retrieved August 7, 2011 and called it a "rhythmically driven record". The Roots drummer Questlove contributed drums on a song titled "You Got a Lot to Learn". In March, Lee posted two audio clips from the sessions on her Twitter, and stated in an interview that the band were working on about 16 songs. At the time, the album was intended for an August or September 2010 release.
The Lillywhite sessions ended in April 2010. On June 21, 2010, Lee announced that Evanescence had suspended recording to continue work on the album and "get our heads into the right creative space". She also stated that their label Wind-up Records was experiencing "uncertain times" which would further delay the album's release. Lee later stated that Lillywhite "wasn't the right fit" for the band and it ultimately wasn't "coming together right". When the rest of the band came into the sessions with Lillywhite and they tried to record the songs, "we just weren't all the way there. it wasn't sounding right". Lee said that some of the songs recorded under Lillywhite, which were more stripped-down and programming-based, weren't right for Evanescence and she realized were more fitting to a solo project. In a June 2011 interview, label president Ed Vetri said that he supported Lee's decision to restart: "One thing we do at Wind-up is, we're patient. I[f] it's not right, it's not coming out. If it takes a year or four years, [we're] going to take the time it needs to write the right record."
Lee and the rest of the band worked together on reworking the songs and writing more music as a group. "We've really relied on each other. And everyone being a part of this album, from the ground up, is an entirely new approach for us", Lee stated; "there's nobody that's just coming in to play guitar. Everybody's invested." The band often jammed and sat down and wrote together, which was a first for Evanescence as before this album Lee had always written the music by herself or with one other person. The band then went into the studio with producer Nick Raskulinecz, whose recent work they liked. They began recording with Rasculinecz in early April 2011, at Blackbird Studio in Nashville. On June 12, Lee announced that guitarist Troy McLawhorn was officially back in Evanescence, and confirmed the album's release date to be October 4, 2011. The label changed the release date to October 11.
Raskulinecz said that songs started with Lee's piano melodies, and Lee, Balsamo and McCord were the core of the music he had heard at that time. When drummer Will Hunt came in "things evolved a little bit more, and he was in on some of the songwriting", and guitarist McLawhorn was also "really important in bringing some great ideas to the table". Raskulinecz called Hunt "an animal on the drums" and said that the "rhythm section of [Hunt] and [McCord] is on fire" and "everybody in [the band] is a great musician".
Alongside the layering of parts, Raskulinecz and engineer Paul Fig focused on the base of the album being entirely performance-based. Raskulinecz had the band play and record multiple live takes, then "comping from there, and then going back and punching in." Fig stated that Raskulinecz "likes to concentrate on the performance, so it's usually beginning to end. ... Generally we'll have six or seven playlists of drums we like and we'll comp something together from those performances. But he really doesn't want it to sound like somebody chopped it up and then slapped it together." Hunt played a 26-inch kick drum, which Fig miked with a Sennheiser e 602 on one side and a FET 47 on the other. His drum kit's toms were recorded with AKG 451s set in hypercardioid.
Apart from piano, Lee recorded various keyboards including a Roland RD700X and various soft synths. She also recorded the analog synth bass pedal Moog Taurus that Raskulinecz suggested. The piano was recorded on tape with multiple mics inside, a PZM on the floor beneath, and AKG C-12s farther away. Lee recorded demo vocals without headphones with a Shure SM7. "When we did the vocals for real, obviously we did it differently. She's an amazing singer—she can sing all day long", Raskulinecz stated. Fig added that in the few days that Raskulinecz was working somewhere else, he was working with her on vocals and he "was worried maybe I was pushing her too hard. But she's like an athlete. She stepped to the plate and hit it out of the park." Lee spent about a month recording vocals, stating that she really pushed herself vocally. Her lead vocals were recorded with a long-body Neumann U 47, and her backing vocals were captured with a Telefunken Elektroakustik 251. Some of the songs have 30 to 40 tracks of vocals.
Balsamo and McLawhorn played multiple guitars through a variety of large and small amps, including Marshalls (2250 and JCM 800), AC-30s, Bogner Shiva and Uberschall, and Buddha Superdrive combo amps. A combination of guitar mics were used, including Shure 57s, FET 47s, AKG 441s, Mojave Audio MA-100s, and Sennheiser 421s, going across four amps. For some overdubs, they used an MA-100, MA-200 and a [Neumann] 87. Raskulinecz said that as there were a lot of piano parts on the songs there aren't many guitar-style overdubs.
After the instruments and most of the vocal tracks were completed, Chris Vrenna contributed more electronic sounds and textures. There are over 30 pairs of stereo tracks of electronics on every song. "It’s little parts and noises and ambience; more synth, lots of low bass. This album has a massive low end", Raskulinecz noted.
The last stage of the process was recording the strings from David Campbell, who worked with Lee on Evanescence's previous albums. Strings were recorded at Avatar Studios in Manhattan in two days. In the final mix, most songs had over 100 tracks. Raskulinecz said that "To play one song back, we had to have two Pro Tools rigs and a tape machine. We completely maxed out the first Pro Tools rig with just the band—guitar, bass, drums, vocals, piano. Then there was another Pro Tools rig that had all of the programming and electronics and some of the strings on it. And then there was a Studer 24-track chasing with all the rest of the strings on it." The album was mixed by Randy Staub at The Warehouse in Vancouver, on Studio 1's SSL G Series console, and Ted Jensen mastered it at Sterling Sound in New York City.
Lee said of working with Raskulinecz: Nick is an awesome producer. He really helped me get the plan and have confidence in the decisions that we made. For me, I have a lot of ideas and sometimes it just comes down to "OK, everything that I'm doing I have two options!" ... as I'm doing these things I'm asking him from the vocal booth or the piano room or whatever, "Which one of these should I do?" He's good at helping me make a quick decision. I really trust his opinion because he makes great records.
In December 2015, Lee posted her cover of "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing" by Chris Isaak, which she recorded in 2009 was intended to appear on the initial album. She explained that the record company had rejected the original project: "The suits had a change of heart during a frustrating recording process and I was told that none of the songs I'd been pouring my heart into for a year, in any form, were good enough- time to start over. I was devastated. I was furious. I was determined to take control of the situation and use it to push myself forward. It ended up making me angry enough to write Evanescence's heaviest album- which I love- and we did end up using 3 songs from the original project."
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