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Evanescence Brings Radio To Life

By Jeff Maisey

Dave Parker, music director at active rock radio station WNOR-FM99, stated back in February that the song he gets most excited to hear his jocks play is Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life." Like WNOR, rock stations across the country have been giving it the heavy rotation treatment. In fact, "Bring Me To Life" sits on top of most rock radio station play-lists. According to Billboard , it is the Number 1 modern rock track.

Fallen , the band's debut album, was released in March and rapidly rose to the Number 5 position on Billboard 's Top 200 album chart. The advance radio play of its single certainly helped album sales, however, the inclusion of "Bring Me To Life" in the movie soundtrack of Daredevil was the greatest break for the previously unknown band from Little Rock, Arkansas.

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Beyond the Bjork-ish look of 20-year-old singer Amy Lee, who's piercing cat's eyes seem to penetrate the soul, the attractiveness of the music of Evanescence (the name means to disappear like vapor) is the continuous battle between good and evil, and more often, the search for spiritual rejuvenation. Lee's angelic voice has a sense of urgency, drawing comparisons to Tori Amos and Shirly Manson of Garbage. On "Tourniquet," she sings, "My God My Tourniquet/Return Me To Salvation" and "My Wounds Cry For The Grave/My Soul Cries For Deliverance/Will I Be Denied Christ?" The lyrical theme plays throughout the disc.

What catches the ear of many listeners is that this very pop/goth vocal style is being injected into the dramatic, dark hard rock you'd expect to find from Linkin Park. Very few women, you see, sing in extreme rock bands, and when they do, it certainly isn't melodic (think Kittie).

Where 12 Stones vocalist Paul McCoy gives "Bring Me to Life" a minimally applied hip-hop attitude, much of the lusciously arranged crunching guitars are bolstered by orchestral bits and piano.

The music of Evanescense is about conflict and attraction, beauty and the beast.

Want To Go? Evanescence, April 14, The NorVa.