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If you’re a fan of Evanescence, you’re probably aware that their newest album, The Bitter Truth is out now! It’s been a long four years since the band’s last album, Synthesis, and to celebrate the release, Amy Lee sat down with Bloody Disgusting’s The Boo Crew!
Lee talked about her true paranormal encounters and the meaningful moments and inspirations behind the band’s newest album.
Since 2017, Lee has been working on aspects of The Bitter Truth. “We worked on this album for a long time. Some of these songs are a decade old…” Lee explained that each song had come a long way, being rewritten, expanded, and finally produced. “Over the past three years, in particular, just focusing on writing material that could go into this vague idea that’d just started taking shape. Then in 2020, that was our whole life…”
Lee spent much of the pandemic developing and refining songs, before finally bringing them to the studio in January of this year. “I’m a total perfectionist when it comes to the holes in lyrics. I spent the last couple of months, honestly, banging my head against the wall, frustrated because it was time to finish things up, and everyone else was done with their parts… and I’m like, ‘It’s just not quite there.’” Lee’s perseverance would pay off, as the album has received plenty of praise, with critics enjoying Evanescence’s return to form.
‘The Bitter Truth’ is a deeply personal album, following Amy’s journey out of grief after her brother’s death in 2018. “It’s hard when you first experience a tragedy, you’re numb, you just wanna go to sleep and not wake up. Over time, you have to start to put your thoughts together and find a way to make it make you strong, or it kills you. And I don’t mean make you hard, I don’t mean make you bitter. For me, it’s been more about living better for those I’ve lost. Being the person they loved more. ”
The album opens with the song Artifact/The Truth, a deeply moving song, with masterful instrumentals. Lee explains “The intro, that very first part, is a dedication to my brother. I recorded Artifact in my hotel, at 3 o’clock in the morning on my laptop, just singing into the computer mic. That distortion and degraded quality it has is just real. I never intended it’d go on the album like that, I sort of thought that’d be a fun piece to do for real later.” But when Lee got to the studio, her producer Nick Raskulinecz wasn’t sure they could recreate the strong emotions behind the song. He encouraged the band to use the audio Lee had already recorded. Lee couldn’t be happier with the final result; mixing the actual artifact with the band’s well-produced sound created a unique listening experience.
Listen to Amy Lee’s full interview with The Boo Crew below!