MUSIC Evanescence crosses boundaries

Give a sweet choir girl an electric guitar, sit back and enjoy.
By JOHN PATRICK GATTA
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
With a debut album nestled at the top of the sales chart and more than a million copies sold, Evanescence may appear to have come out of nowhere to become an overnight sensation.
While an international audience has finally had the opportunity to appreciate the group and its album, "Fallen," there's been a nearly decade-long gestation period for the members to sharpen their sonic vision.
Ben Moody and Amy Lee, the creative core of the band, discovered each other at summer camp when both were in their early teens. "We had these grand visions of symphonies and choirs and metal guitars and double bass and eventually it happened," said Moody during a phone interview right after sound check at a tour stop in McAllen, Texas.
"There's just a connection that was immediate from the moment we met, and it has never wavered to this day. It's just amazing. We finish each other's thoughts musically. We couldn't be more different outside of music is the funny thing. We are so polar opposite in so many areas of life, but somehow musically we are meant to be together."
The two began writing songs together shortly after they returned to their hometown in Little Rock, Ark. They worked on the music of their dreams during several years of nonstop writing sessions.
Moody admitted it took quite some time for the Evanescence sound to mesh, bringing in elements of pop balladry, new metal, haunting choirs and string arrangements to create a dramatic result.
His fondness for rough riffs of Metallica and Motley Crue is balanced by the stripped-down delicacy evoked on piano-based numbers such as "My Immortal" and "Hello." The 11 songs on "Fallen" mix dark and hopeful moods, searing and delicate arrangements in a manner that can be described as Tori Amos fronting Linkin Park.
"It was this huge cluster for awhile. It took awhile to sort it all out. We would experiment and go, 'No, this isn't really what I was thinking,'" Moody said.
It's Evanescence's ability to blur the lines between one musical genre and another that has given the group a wide appeal as well as embroiled it in controversy.
All seemed well when two tracks, including "Bring Me to Life," the first single off of "Fallen," were prominently featured in the film "Daredevil." A music video interspersed scenes from the action film to whet the appetite for those who weren't familiar with the duo's EPs and independently released 2000 album.
That helped to set up the album's March release, reaching No. 7 during its initial week on record store shelves.
Listeners get wrong idea
Then, as "Fallen" gained prominence, Moody's comments in a major magazine feature regarding the group's embrace by Christian rock fans based on the interpretation of the songs' lyrical content led to a momentary backlash. Although he thanks Jesus in the album's liner notes, he did express dissatisfaction with the unbending rules within the Christian genre and what he considers hypocritical actions by some. He didn't elaborate.
What's most important to him is that Evanescence's music finds an audience that looks beyond the pigeonholing of categories and develops the type of bond with the material that Moody and Lee have created as musicians.
"For ourselves the songs are therapeutic and cathartic, the way to constructively express feelings. For the audience, I hope that people can feel connected and get a sense that if they feel these things they're not alone. For those people who experience what we sing about, we want them to realize that we've been there and we know others that have too.
"Amy and I have been through serious personal stuff in our lives. Although we don't sing about them directly, we sing about the feelings that they brought about. We want our audience to connect with that and, hopefully, find a place of refuge."