It's been nine years since Evanescence released an album of all-new material, 2011's chart-topping self-titled LP — a long drought that's about to finally come to end. Last week, the quartet, led by singer Amy Lee, made fans' dreams come true when they announced their forthcoming full-length, The Bitter Truth — and their plan to release it "one piece at a time." Now they've offered up its first piece, the lead single "Wasted on You." Fifty of those fans — specifically, the first 50 to pre-order the album — got an early listen to the song during a Zoom chat with Lee on April 23rd. At midnight, the song hit digital streaming platforms. Stream it below via YouTube.
"Wasted on You" marks Evanescence's first original song in three years — 2017's Synthesis LP, a collection of reimagined, orchestral versions of classic cuts, included two new numbers, "Imperfection" and "Hi-Lo." In late 2019, Evanescence covered Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" for the Xbox video game Gears of War 5.
"We were recording this music right up until we couldn't go into the studio anymore, and finished it remotely through file sharing and phone calls," Lee commented. "Tweaking mixes, adding background vocals, creating the video and album art all from home has been like water in the desert for me, my light in a dark time. We are still writing and have a lot more work to do on this album, but this time we wanted to release the songs individually, as we create, to live more in the moment with our fans and our music.
"'Wasted On You' wasn't the song we were planning to release first, but when the whole world went into indefinite lockdown and everything changed, so did the feeling and meaning of what we wanted to say right now. I didn't write these lyrics about what we're all now going through, but somehow that's exactly what they are."
She added, "As far as business is concerned, this is considered a terrible time to release. But we believe that people need music now more than ever. We do, and we're not going to wait to share it because who knows what tomorrow brings. Who knows if it even comes? This is who we really are and we're calling out across the world for a connection."
Like all touring bands, Evanescence saw their spring plans derailed by the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting shutdown — in particular, the group was set to hit the road in Europe on a co-headlining run with Within Temptation, under the banner "Worlds Collide," but the tour had to be postponed. Lee has kept busy nonetheless. In March, she broadcasted an intimate solo performance from her home studio via Instagram Live, promoting social distancing and raise awareness for World Health Organization and Global Citizen during #togetherathome. She also recently appeared on Body Count's "When I'm Gone," off the Ice-T-led rap-metal crew's latest album, Carnivore.
