Evanescence released Evanescence in the United States on October 11, 2011. Their third studio album followed a five-year recording gap and a change of direction during its creation, with Amy Lee and her bandmates developing the material together before recording with producer Nick Raskulinecz.
Opening track and lead single “What You Want” addressed Lee’s decision to return to the band after its hiatus. “It’s motivating myself not to be afraid,” she explained when discussing the song, connecting its message to accepting the uncertainty that came with stepping back into Evanescence.
Lee had stepped away after the touring cycle for The Open Door, spending time with her husband and settling into life in New York. She told Guitar World she had deliberately avoided planning her next musical move. By 2009, she was writing again and missing the other musicians. Returning to Evanescence, however, involved working out what she wanted the band to become.
The first recording attempt took a different route. Sessions with Steve Lillywhite in 2010 explored electronic material, much of which Lee had written away from the group. Speaking to SPIN in April 2011, she said the difficulty came when they tried to combine those experiments with the band. The sessions stopped, and she was unsure whether they would make another record. The musicians subsequently revisited the strongest songs, wrote more and reshaped the material together.
That collaboration took some pressure off Lee to complete every idea herself. She described writing sessions with guitarist Terry Balsamo and bassist Tim McCord, alongside jams involving the full band. With Troy McLawhorn on guitar and Will Hunt on drums, an unfinished idea could become something all five musicians helped develop. Balsamo told Guitar World that the guitarists also worked to complement one another, finding different parts within the same riff instead of simply doubling everything.
Raskulinecz helped turn those ideas into arrangements before recording began. He told Mix that the group spent a month rehearsing at SIR in Nashville, working eight-hour days, five days a week. At Blackbird Studios, he and engineer Paul Fig emphasized complete performances and repeated takes. Hunt recorded his drums against temporary guitar, bass and vocal tracks, with the finished parts assembled from selected performances. The aim was to retain the feel of a musician playing through the song.
The production still made room for Lee’s interest in electronics. Chris Vrenna added programming, while Raskulinecz introduced Moog Taurus bass pedals. Piano parts occupied space that might otherwise have gone to additional guitar layers. Some songs contained 30 to 40 vocal tracks, according to the producer, making the balance between instruments and voices a central recording concern.
“Lost in Paradise” showed how a personal song could grow through that process. Lee had begun with an intimate piano piece; Raskulinecz suggested where the band should enter, helping transform its arrangement. She described the finished song as a favorite shared by the musicians, despite its beginnings as something small and private.
The earlier electronic direction also survived in the album’s closing track. “Swimming Home” was added late and came from Lee’s period of writing music built around programming. She described its subject as accepting the passage into another life. After rebuilding the album around the band, Evanescence ended the standard edition with a song that retained a connection to the experiments that preceded it.
