Album Review - Evanescence - The Bitter Truth (RCA Records)

If you are an Evanescence fan you will have had a long wait for new music from the band - this new album is their first album of completely new songs since 2011.

Singer Amy Lee is the only constant member of this influential band that in a way are hard to categorise; rock, metal with even a bit of Enya in there, with what you could say is the full on production that Jim Steinman produced on Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell which comes to mind too.

Melodic and masterfully played, it sounds like the music was meant to be played in an arena or a vast stadium such is the power and delivery that it all sounds colossal.

Pounding drums and Lee’s haunting vocals open up Broken Pieces Shine - the band do have such a distinctive sound, probably because of Lee’s vocals in part but this particular track is just so Evanescence.

The Game Is Over has already been released as a single. The lyric is about bring yourself and not wearing a mask, whilst Yeah Right switches between metal to finishing up as a ballad but sounds not as dark as some of the other tracks you might discover here.

Use My Voice has a vocal hook that will be sung back by the fans when the band tour later this year, though the lyric is about a college student who was sexually assaulted. Not the subject matter that you would get on a lot of rock albums, “Don’t You Speak For Me” sounds even more telling when it comes from Lee’s voice.

Far From Heaven is the only ballad on the album. The piano led track where Lee seems to question her faith and ponders on her friends that have died.

Blind Belief rounds off an album that has been worth waiting 10 years for, a typical Evanescence track that sounds like Metallica mixed with Enya, yes really.

If their legions of fans have kept the belief no one will be disappointed here.

I rate the album 4 out of 5.