Evanescence released Synthesis on November 10, 2017. Their fourth studio album revisited material from Fallen, The Open Door and Evanescence, rebuilding familiar songs around orchestra and electronic programming. Two new songs, “Imperfection” and “Hi-Lo,” joined the re-recordings and instrumental pieces, giving the project room for fresh writing alongside its return to earlier material.
“Imperfection” carried a particularly direct message. In comments published by NME, Amy Lee explained that she wrote from the perspective of someone facing the loss of another person to suicide and depression. She wanted the song to urge that person to stay alive. Its official music video accompanied a new composition with a purpose beyond rearranging the band’s history.
The idea for the album began with something Lee kept hearing beneath Evanescence’s finished recordings. She told Dazed that David Campbell’s arrangements and the electronic programming could disappear beneath the accumulated layers of a rock production: “a lot of that beautiful intricate stuff gets kind of buried.” She had wanted mixes that let those elements stand alongside the vocals. Returning to the songs turned that wish into a larger undertaking. Campbell rearranged them for a full orchestra, using the space opened up by reducing the band’s usual instrumental weight. Producer and programmer Will Hunt developed the samples, keyboards and electronic parts that would work with those arrangements. The musicians were rebuilding the recordings from the beginning.
“Bring Me to Life” made the changes especially clear. Its Synthesis version omitted the original male rap part and recast the arrangement with strings, percussion and electronics. The selections also reached beyond the breakthrough single: “Lacrymosa,” “Your Star” and “The End of the Dream” were among the songs given another treatment. Familiar melodies remained, but their surroundings changed.
On “Hi-Lo,” Lindsey Stirling contributed a violin solo. The collaboration connected two musicians already interested in combining classical playing with electronic music. Speaking to Ravinia Magazine in 2018, Lee described that shared interest as a reason Stirling suited the project.
That interview also put a practical detail behind the scale of Synthesis. Lee said earnings from Fallen had helped give her the resources to pursue expensive musical ideas without having to borrow or seek funding. She understood the risk of changing songs listeners already loved. The project grew from her desire to hear them differently, with the success of the earlier recordings helping finance the work. Revisiting the catalog required both a musical commitment and the means to carry it through.
Taking those arrangements on tour introduced another challenge. In a December 2017 interview with Rolling Stone Australia, Lee described performing with a different orchestra in each city. The touring conductor rehearsed with the players for about 90 minutes, and the band joined for the final half hour to address trouble spots. Much of the set therefore came together with that particular group for the first time in front of the audience. Lee said the quieter instrumental balance also let her hear individual notes and concentrate more closely on her piano playing and vocals.
The live production became a release of its own. Synthesis Live, issued in 2018 as a concert film and live album, preserved the orchestral arrangements in performance after the studio project had taken them back apart.
