EVANESCENCE - Anywhere But Home

With hardly two albums to their name, Wind-Up decided that an audio disc of the band's live show might as well accompany the live Evanescence DVD release (or is that vice versa?). Crowd favourites like Haunted and My Immortal are executed with precision (like the rest of the 14 strong album). The hard guitar backing to Amy's lyrical voice (a basic combination which has pushed them to the forefront) also gets pulled back with the voice and piano prominent tracks like Breathe No More. With the stamp of the band's departed original guitarist still in evidence, this has done little to deter the band's constant climb. Recorded in Paris, the live DVD also features a behind the scenes documentary (often silly to the extent that hardcore fans who live themselves into the pain-stricken moods and commercial pop-goth-rock intensity of the songs may become a touch disillusioned with the fact that they are actually regular folk who don't sit in dark rooms staring at the floor, driven to lovelorn self-mutilation). Local Seether fans will be happy to see the ex-Mr. Welgemoed (Amy's beau) in some of the clips, as the bands toured together. Some will prefer hearing the music than seeing it, but at least here you have the choice to enjoy both. The closing track Whisper is a new studio recording. The band's style is formulaic in both the frequently ultra simplistic guitar riffs and soaring vocal melodies, but it works, with fans spanned across the divide, from housewives to metal fans. While the hard-rock-metal-melodic female voice combination is nothing new, hopefully Evanescence will turn listeners new to the genre on to groups like Therion, Nightwish, Lacuna Coil, The Gathering and Madder Mortem who have been doing this on the fringes for many years.

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