Evanescence: Evanescence

Amy Lee is the last original member still standing in the turgid goth-metal outfit Evanescence, and it’s just as well: Once she unfurls her overbearingly operatic voice, there’s scant room for anybody else. Bellowing like a vampire princess that’s been hurled into the bottomless reaches of hell, Lee specializes in mid-tempo, melodramatic, melismatic, heavy riffing balladry that manages the singular feat of sounding ridiculous and joyless simultaneously. Backed by a new batch of faceless, lurching, and seriously soul-patchin’ bros, Lee revives the Evanescence name for this self-titled release, the band’s first in five years. As unwelcome as this relic of Bush-era ’00s miserablism is, Lee can’t be faulted for recognizing that today’s tough economic times call for draggy, Enya-on-BGH dirges that obliterate puny human feeling under the weight of Lee’s titanic, supernatural emoting.