The Open Door
The Open Door is the second studio album by American rock band Evanescence, released on September 25, 2006, by Wind-up Records. Amy Lee had full creative control of the record, incorporating new elements into their previous musical styles, including her classical influences, homemade sounds, industrial rock, symphonic metal, progressive rock, electronica and the use of choirs on several songs. The album was written in the course of 18 months, and the recording process was delayed as a result of guitarist Terry Balsamo's stroke. Most of the songs were co-composed by Lee and Balsamo, with production handled by Dave Fortman.
The Open Door received generally positive reviews from music critics. The song "Sweet Sacrifice" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance, and the album won Album of the Year at the MTV Australia Video Music Awards. The Open Door debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling more than 447,000 copies in its first week. It topped the charts in Australia, Europe, Germany, Greece and Switzerland, and reached the top five in over 15 countries. The album was certified platinum by the RIAA just over a month after its release, and has since been certified double platinum. As of 2011, it has sold more than six million copies worldwide.
"Call Me When You're Sober" was released digitally as the album's lead single on September 4, 2006. The song peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and charted in the top 10 of multiple countries internationally. "Lithium" was released as the second single on December 4, 2006, and "Sweet Sacrifice" was released as the third international single from the album on May 25, 2007. "Good Enough" was released in Germany as the final single on December 14, 2007. The Open Door was supported by a worldwide tour that ran from October 2006 to December 2007.
Background
Lee stated that Evanescence would begin writing material for the second album in March 2004, after finishing the tour for Fallen. She said that it was "impossible to write on tour and the one thing I love more than anything else about my job", adding that "everybody's just ready to stop touring and go back to the studio". The album progressed slowly because of Lee's desire to maximize the creative process and not rush production, as well as Terry Balsamo's stroke. In reference to the album's title, Lee said: "I feel like I have the ability to do a lot of things I couldn't do before, for a number of reasons... A lot of doors have kind of been opened in my life—not just since everything has happened for us." The album cover, which was designed by Lee, was posted on Evanescence's official website on August 4, 2006.Writing and recording
The Open Door was written in 18 months. Lee composed nine songs with guitarist Terry Balsamo, "All That I'm Living For" with guitarist John LeCompt, and was the sole composer of "Like You", "Lithium" and "Good Enough". She confessed that with former guitarist Ben Moody's departure, she was not restrained in the writing process, and Balsamo was open minded, supported her work, they collaborated, and he encouraged her to do something she would not have done with Moody. "I was really looking forward to being able to trust", she said of writing the album. "The studio was like a free place where we could just be musicians and see what came out".Lee was "finally creating in the same room with someone" when working with Balsamo, as previously she and Moody wrote separately as they "could never really sit in the same room and create" and had major creative differences. After his exit, she felt she reclaimed a creative freedom, and found it "liberating not to have someone standing over me constantly shooting my ideas down". Deeming writing a vulnerable process, Lee could only write music by herself in the past, and this album was the first time she wrote music together with another person. She called her musical partnership with Balsamo healthy and productive. It was a "completely different" writing environment with him; there was "no pressure of wanting to rule the world" and they were "having fun with it for a change". Lee regarded the writing process the best she had experienced as she had free rein and "could do whatever I wanted without being judged or being told it's stupid."
Lee went through a spectrum of emotions throughout her experiences in the lead up to and development of The Open Door. She said that the making of the album was "really intense" and she came out "feeling purified". She and Balsamo began working together at her rented home in California. After experiencing cabin fever, they rented a place in Florida, where they finished the album. Lee wrote her musical parts and Balsamo made "beautiful guitar weavings around what I was doing". The two would also "sit in a room and jam". They approached the songs in various way; aside from programming and keyboard melodies, some songs would begin with a bassline, guitar line, or vocal melody. Lee engineered demos for the songs and she and Balsamo worked with Pro Tools to be in control of what went on the album. As she had full control of the process this time around, she could do a lot more things than before "as a singer, as a music writer, even as an engineer". Lee said the songs she was working on for the album "still sound like the Evanescence everybody knows, but at the same time it's going in a new direction, and I love that direction."
The Open Door was recorded from September 2005 to March 2006 at Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles, California. In October 2005, as the album was being recorded and he was in the studio, Balsamo suffered a stroke from a torn neck artery, and the left side of his body was paralyzed. Lee recalled the "horrifying" experience as it took over 12 hours for him to be able to receive an MRI, "meanwhile, the first 12 hours after a stroke, long-term effects are happening". She called his recovery a "huge miracle" after doctors did not think he would ever be able to play guitar again. Balsamo began physical therapy and the process of re-training his hand to play, stating that he was determined to overcome the paralysis. Lee considered his stroke to have been "the most difficult part" of the album process. Everything that occurred during the making of the record became inspiration and fuel for it, and made it "a really special" record.
The record was produced and mixed by Dave Fortman at Ocean Way Studios. Jeremy Parker handled the audio engineering, Mike Houge and Wesley Seidman served as additional engineers, and Ted Jensen mastered the record at Sterling Sound, New York. The choral arrangements were made by Lee and recorded at Capitol Studios in California, with the choir and strings recorded in an old chapel near Seattle, Washington. DJ Lethal programmed on every song on the album with Lee doing additional programming. John LeCompt is credited with additional programming on "Call Me When You're Sober" and "All That I'm Living For", which was programmed by Bon Harris. David Campbell completed the orchestral arrangements, which were performed by Seattlemusic.
Music and lyrics
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Lee said the album was "a complete spectrum of darkness and scary stuff and emotion". She told The Washington Post:"So much has changed in my life - I was going through so many things in the making of the record, and before the making of the record.... I just wanted to create and do something different and branch out. At the heart of it I know it's still Evanescence and it's still me, but structurally it's a lot more fun. We went a lot of different ways with it instead of constantly sticking to the same structure and the same pop formula. I think it's more mature and more brave all around; it's like the instruments actually go together, the piano and guitar and vocals, since they're written together - they intertwine. It's definitely even more personal. At least for me, because I was there, it sounds more fun because I was having so much more fun."
Lee said that she pushed her own limits, doing things she didn't have the courage to do in Fallen. She also said her goal was to make a record that she loved even more than Fallen, rather than to copy the formula which made the previous record successful. Lee incorporated her classical influences and new elements in the music, including home-made sounds. When asked whether The Open Door was thematically different from Fallen, Lee said that Evanescence and music in general is her venue to "purge all of the negative and hard, difficult experiences" throughout her life, and while that is front and center in this album, it comes from a less hopeless attitude and with a more reflective outlook. Rather than "wallowing" in "the hard stuff", the record is characterized by her newfound resolution and is thematically in search of answers and happiness.
"I had so much I needed to get off my chest," Lee explained. "It's very literal and specific." She said she was "sick of hiding behind metaphors" in everything she had written before. The lyrics on the album are a lot more confessional than she had written previously, and she chose to not censor herself as she felt she "really needed to get out of the whole space of negativity". "I could just have shut up and stayed stuck in a lot of negative situations and not done anything, and on the outside it would have looked like everything was fine for me", she stated. "I had to actually purge something out of myself and write a whole lot of music. This album is very special to me because I do open myself up a lot more." Part of her inspiration for the album was her experience as a lone female and her "hard adjustment" with the fame the Fallen era brought, as well as her perceiving a "cartoon version of yourself, the album cover version, the interview version. How can you feel like everyone knows me, but nobody knows me"?
Richard Harrington of The Washington Post stated that the album consists of gothic rock songs with brooding lyrics, Lee's "searing fallen angel" vocals, and "epic melodies", accompanied by pianos, strings and choirs, while "there's no shortage of soaring, dynamic rockers." Aly Comingore of the Santa Barbara Independent said it is "rich in instrumentation", swelling with "organs, elaborate string arrangements, and lush choral vocals", and driven by Lee's "intense lyrics and classically trained piano skills." The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that Lee's "emotional convalescence" gave way to "symphonic metal tunes and dark-hearted lyrics" that "are gloomier than ever". Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times described the record as a "whorl of personal confession, high theater and head-banging rock" with "youthfully earnest and sometimes obvious" lyrics. Jon Dolan of Entertainment Weekly felt the music possessed the "same crush of chunka-chunka riffs, moody electronic churn, and Valhalla-bound metal slam" of Fallen, alongside Lee's "strikingly operatic singing". Postmedia News said the album "loses the punchy power rifts" of Fallen "and instead persuades the listener with piano and airy vocals". The Boston Globes Sarah Rodman summarized it as a "mix of Lee's ethereal soprano, piano interludes, and layers of serrated guitar crunch". Lee channels her frustrations "utilizing a few curious faith-based metaphors in the process", according to Christianity Todays Andree Farias, and "industrial backbeats" defer to "thick metal riffs, orchestrated grandeur, and ghoulish choral elements, all complemented by Lee's operatic soprano".
Jordan Reimer of The Daily Princetonian said "haunting orchestral arrangements and programming" infuse the album, which is thematically defined by "tumultuous relationships and loneliness", while Lee's attitude sounds "more aggressive and less vulnerable than before" and her vocal melodies range from "sublimely minimalist to roaringly operatic." The Irish Times characterized it as a "heavy sounding" record, "still unmistakably Goth but with strings and choirs attached." Ed Thompson of IGN described the songs as "less radio-friendly" than those on Fallen and "all the more complete for their lack of bending to fit the hit song." Billboard said the album is full of "blistering attacks on those who have betrayed" Lee, comprising a "successful set of melodramatic goth/industrial anthems with touches of prog and even classical". Kerrang! described the mood of The Open Door as "elegant heaviness". The guitars are "far heavier than before" with some riffs of "melodic darkness". The album also contains "more prominent classical influence at work" with strings and choirs accentuated, alongside Evanescence's "trademark goth-edged metal", "trademark dark pop-driven hooks", and new Bjork-inspired electronica that "creates a subtle mood".