If I could give a title to the new Evanescence album that would be “Back to Dignity”. Not that this is the album of the year, by any means, but what we do have here is a release with some pretty good moments that are worth dealing with and that is much more remarkable than the completely indifferent, generic and colorless self-titled album of 2011 and of course from the abominable “Synthesis” of 2017 that the band tried to launch as the new, back then, album of Evanescence.
“The Bitter Truth” is generally a good album, which reminds me a lot of the atmosphere of “The Open Door”. Amy Lee, no matter how charismatic and talented, she has realized that she cannot repeat the huge success of the excellent “Fallen” (it is not an easy task, after all) and all she’s trying to do really is revolve around the same sonic structure and pattern of the follow-up of “Fallen”. This is plain evident in “Broken Pieces Shine”, “Feeding The Dark”, the uplifting “Better Without You” and the beautiful ballad “Far From Heaven”. Beyond that and truth be told here, we are treated with a few good songs and a few mediocre ones.
It is highly doubtful whether “The Bitter Truth” will occupy a place in my list of the best releases of 2021 at the end of the year, but it is a decent album that brings Evanescence back to an at least respectable level which was long gone and missing for many years. Hopefully “The Bitter Truth” is a fresh new start for the band.
