Evanescence Feels “Better Without You” Ahead of New Album
After a year of teasing — and nearly two years of writing and recording — Evanescence is now just three weeks away from releasing their new album, The Bitter Truth. We’ve heard four singles so far: “Wasted On You,” “The Game Is Over,” “Use My Voice,” and “Yeah Right.” Today, fans get to hear one more song, titled “Better Without You.”
The first ten seconds of “Better Without You” open with a delicate music box sound, but it’s not long before it pulses into mayhem. With punchy guitars and an aggressive soundscape behind her, Amy Lee sings low on the verses. She paints a picture of a powerless girl signing away her future, but she knows the truth. The song explodes into a powerful chorus, both strong and dreamy. The chorus then fades out with a hypnotic vocal cascade. “Better Without You” may be the best song we’ve heard so far, or at least the most balanced between Evanescence’s different styles. Our only complaint is that Amy’s vocals seemed to be mixed rather low, making it hard to hear the words well. In any case, it’s an impactful song.
Listen to “Better Without You” below:
You can stream or download “Better Without You” from all the major music providers here. Along with the singles “Wasted On You,” “The Game Is Over,” “Use My Voice,” and “Yeah Right,” it will appear on the band’s upcoming album, The Bitter Truth, due March 26th. You can pre-order the album now.
The Bitter Truth will include 12 songs; see the full tracklist below:
- Artifact / The Turn
- Broken Pieces Shine
- The Game Is Over
- Yeah Right
- Feeding The Dark
- Wasted On You
- Better Without You
- Use My Voice
- Take Cover
- Far From Heaven
- Part Of Me
- Blind Belief
In addition to the fives singles, one other title will certainly look familiar to fans: “Take Cover.” Evanescence debuted it live in 2016, though it was actually a leftover from their 2011 self-titled album.
The New Album’s Rock Sound
In a September 2020 interview with Kerrang!, Amy also divulged a lot about how The Bitter Truth will sound. First and foremost, in case the first four singles weren’t obvious enough, it’s a rock album:
It’s a rock record. We wanted to showcase the strength, fun and power of the band. There’s no holding back. It’s heavy sonically, and it feels good to go heavy. Really good. But it’s not heavy for heavy’s sake.
However, The Bitter Truth offers a lot of other styles and sounds, too. Indeed, fans “haven’t heard all the sounds of the album yet.” Amy mentioned songs with “score-like drama” and “aggressive power,” and even “balls to the wall” moments that came out of Evanescence reconvening this summer after months apart. (Don’t worry, they all got tested for COVID before regrouping together.) At least one song features double bass drumming.
Consider us at Hidden Jams *super* excited to hear the new album! We’ve loved each of the five singles so far, and can’t wait to hear what’s next.
Recent Music from Evanescence & Amy Lee
After releasing Evanescence in 2011, frontwoman Amy Lee went down her own musical path. In 2014, Amy shared her soundtrack album, Aftermath. Two years later, inspired by her young son, Amy released a children’s album, Dream Too Much. Amy also released a 4-song EP of covers featuring songs by Portishead, U2, Led Zeppelin, and Chris Isaak.
In 2017, Amy shared translated cover of “Love Exists,” a reworking of “L’amore esiste” by the Italian singer Francesca Michielin. Also that spring, Amy released her original solo song, “Speak To Me,” for the film Voice From The Stone. More recently, Amy collaborated with violinist Lindsey Stirling’s on the song “Love Goes On And On,” released in September 2019. In March 2020, Amy’s song with Body Count, “When I’m Gone,” was released. At the end of July, Amy’s newly recording duet of “Break In” with Halestorm came out; its music video arrived in August. Last September, Amy appeared on the new song “Sakura Rising” with the Japanese group WagakkiBand. And most recently, in October Amy joined Bring Me The Horizon on their new song, “One Day The Only Butterflies Left Will Be In Your Chest As You March Towards Your Death.”
Apart from Amy’s solo work and duets, Evanescence has also been active in the last few years. In early 2017, Evanescence released a boxset of their three studio albums and b-sides, and later that year we got their electronic-meets-symphonic album, Synthesis. After plenty of touring, they put out Synthesis Live in fall 2018. In November last year, Evanescence shared their cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain,” releasing its music video last year in January.
The Return of Evanescence
Evanescence has been actively working on their long-awaited 4th studio album in the past two years. They started writing and demoing in spring 2019, and officially began recording early in 2020. They expressed plans to work with several producers. They began with producer Nick Raskulinecz –- the same man who produced their last album, Evanescence, in 2011, and mixed “The Chain” in 2019.
Although lockdown forced the band to slow down and record separately from their own homes for a while, they were able to spend six weeks together last summer recording. (They got tested for COVID and kept it as safe as possible!)
The band has a major tour coming up with the band Within Temptation. Their World Collide tour will take the two bands across Europe sometime in 2021. It was supposed to happen last April, and then last September, but like all other tours and events, it was delayed due to Coronavius.
Enjoy the new single “Better Without You,” and get ready to hear all of The Bitter Truth in just three weeks, on March 26th. Keep track of all we know about the album here. As always, keep checking back here for all the latest Evanescence music news.
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