Amy Lee isn’t just drawn to melodrama; she thrives on it. Evanescence’s dark-angel singer has certainly had her share of turmoil: Guitarist Ben Moody, who cowrote the band’s breakout album, Fallen, with Lee, quit only a few months after its release. Lee’s personal life doesn’t seem so settled, either. The hopeful sentiments that buoyed “Bring Me to Life” have bitten the dust, and Lee now sounds trapped in one long couples-therapy session. Either she’s swearing off her reliance on a certain guy (likely Seether’s Shaun Morgan, who recently checked into rehab), explaining why the relationship won’t work or hoping (in the tough-love single “Call Me When You’re Sober”) that he’ll crash and burn and finally learn a lesson.

Four years back, the very thought of goth Christian nü-metal with a twist of melancholic Enya sounded downright hellish. But Fallen’s matching of rivet-gun guitar and high-ceilinged hooks to Lee’s soft-focus soprano brought something genuinely fresh to metal: It lulled and body-slammed at the same time, as if it were its own mash-up. The novelty of that sound may be gone, but Evanescence still know how to make the most of it. Denser and more scuzzed-up than Fallen, the album amps everything up to gloriously epic, over-the-top proportions. The bone-crushing “Weight of the World” and the extreme-power-ballad maelstrom “Lithium” are rare instances of pop metal that does justice to both genres. Even the choirs, which sound like they want to shout down Satan, are divinely overheated.

Moody’s absence becomes apparent when the album bogs down in ballads centered around hypersensitive pianos, as if Lee is pining more for the return of Lilith Fair than for next year’s Ozzfest. (Those songs also portend the inevitable Lee solo album, especially since Evanescence, which has been shedding employees faster than the Bush administration, has become more brand than band.) Subtlety doesn’t become Lee; she’s best when she lets her band create a sonic apocalypse and then tries to soar above it.



Download: “Call Me When You’re Sober,” “Weight of the World,” “Lithium”