Evanescence released The Open Door in the United States on October 3, 2006. Their second studio album followed Fallen with a different songwriting partnership at its center: Amy Lee and guitarist Terry Balsamo. Working again with producer Dave Fortman, the band made room for more elaborate arrangements and a wider range of emotions.
Co-founder Ben Moody had left during the band’s European tour in 2003. Balsamo subsequently became Lee’s principal collaborator, sharing writing credits with her on nine of the new album’s 13 songs. Lee credited the experience of touring with making her a stronger singer and musician. In a 2006 Classic Rock interview, she described feeling more confident and able to express more of herself than she had on Fallen.
That confidence was clear in lead single “Call Me When You’re Sober.” Lee connected it to the end of her relationship with Seether’s Shaun Morgan, while explaining that the words also applied to other people in her life. The title came from something she had repeatedly said herself. Its directness reflected her willingness to address those experiences without disguising the central message.
The change extended to how she wanted Evanescence to sound. Lee told Classic Rock that she had no intention of repeating the male vocal approach used on “Bring Me to Life,” which had been requested for the earlier record. Although she appreciated how that song worked onstage, she did not want that decision to dictate the follow-up.
Fortman recorded the album with the band at the Record Plant in Los Angeles and mixed it at Ocean Way Studios. Choir parts and strings recorded in an old chapel expanded the arrangements beyond the core band. “Lacrymosa” incorporated the “Lacrimosa” passage from Mozart’s Requiem, with orchestra and choir.
Lee was also learning to build more of those sounds herself. Looking back in a 2021 Music Connection interview, she described learning Pro Tools and creating her own samples during The Open Door period. That hands-on work gave her another way to develop ideas she had once hesitated to share. “I began to feel the beauty and the freedom in its imperfection,” she said. Her involvement reached beyond writing melodies and lyrics to experimenting with how the recordings could take shape.
The emotional risks were just as specific. Lee explained to SongwriterUniverse in November 2006 that “Lithium” used its title as a metaphor for her attachment to sadness and her desire to escape it. The song addressed the difficulty of letting go of a familiar state, even when happiness was what she wanted.
For the closing track, Lee let herself write about that happiness. She wrote “Good Enough” alone, setting the ballad around piano and strings. She told SongwriterUniverse that its optimism had made it unusually difficult to share: she feared the band would reject a song that found her at peace. Instead, they loved it. Its place at the end reflected where she felt she had arrived after the experiences explored across the record.
