Retro Review / Evanescence’s My Immortal: Amy Lee’s Gothic Metal Opera

For me, Fallen by Evanescence is on the short list of historic metal records. In a 2000’s metal landscape dominated by Korn, Slipknot and Linkin Park, Amy Lee’s powerful and soul wrenching vocal re-defined what metal could be. Her vocal backed by crunchy early 2000s metal guitar caused me to look at the genre from a new perspective. Much like the Runaways and Stevie Nicks in the 70s, Amy Lee gave such a pumped up and ultra masculine genre much needed emotional depth.

Musically, Evanescence falls squarely into the early 2000s metal mould of crunchy guitar, lots of kick drum and a post-production sheen that set it apart from the largely DIY garage metal sound of 80s thrash. A bit more edge and complexity than 80’s hair, but lacking the soul of early Metallica and Slayer. The kind of metal you can take home to dinner, but still feel like you’re dating the bad boy at school. The metal that listened to Depeche Mode and painted their nails black. My Immortal, a track she helped compose and write when she was 15, is a throwback to the pioneering metal power ballads of Metallica, like One or Fade to Black, but with less thrash. The piano and rising strings allows Amy Lee to float above it all…probably in a long black lace dress surrounded by candles. In isolation, there is nothing metal about this track at all, but for me it fits squarely in the power ballad category mainly due to her vocal. That vocal is her superpower and is what we will talk about next.

Lyrically, this is classic Fade to Black territory. The ever present shadow of death, mortality, loneliness and the afterlife are all metal power ballad fodder, but Lee elevates it. She brings the love into metal and it is the love she has for who she has lost in this track that keeps their memory and soul living. Amy Lee’s vocal is unique in the metal world and hooks you at the first note. Lee’s vocal is mix of witchy metal magic, power, soul and comfort. It’s strange to say that a metal vocal is comforting, but Lee’s vocal has a warmth and range lacking in the aggressive and throat destroying vocals in most metal. She has unequalled power, but not at the cost of her humanity.

I am at the brink of tears each time My Immortal hits its stride when Lee gets to the bridge in the third minute. Evanescence, more accurately Amy Lee, brought gothic metal out from niche status into the mainstream and changed metal from that point on. This is an epic song that will live on forever and will always persuade me to join her coven.

Listen to My Immortal