Evanescence

Evanescence, the self-titled third album released in October 2011, layers heavy guitar and electronic texture with Amy Lee's striking voice and piano to update the band's dark appeal for its moment. Nick Raskulinecz produced. Even at the fiercest, the vocal emotion sits at the centre and the density of sound pushes that expression forward. Five years had passed since the last album — years of repeated line-up changes and of sessions cut with Steve Lillywhite in 2010 that the label scrapped. This is also the first album written collectively as a band. The centre of gravity shifted from Lee's own world to the sound of a group, and the guitar weight and rhythm-section drive rose noticeably. “What You Want,” “My Heart Is Broken” and “Lost in Paradise” were released as singles. Gothic shading and arena-scale drive coexist, and each song has a large rise and fall. It entered at No. 1 in the US with 127,000 in week one, passed 421,000 by 2012 and reached RIAA gold in 2020. With the band leaving Wind-up in 2014, it became their last album of original material for that label.