I bought the CD based on the single, "Bring Me To Life" and the recommendation of a friend of mine. When I first listened to the CD it took me completely off guard. For some reason (and I should know better by now) I expected the whole album to be similar to the single I had heard, and this brought the first surprise: the male singer on the single is not a part of the group, he is a "guest vocalist" from another band, which means the distinctive male/female hard/soft switch is absent from the rest of the album. I have heard people compare these guys to Linkin Park, but that must have been based on "Bring Me To Life" as the rest of the album is quite different. The group they most remind me of is Garbage, or, more correctly, Garbage's first and second albums. It's not that the two groups could be confused, its the "feel". In both cases the lead singer might have a good voice, but the arrangements and the production make it very hard to tell. Either the music is so loud it drowns the vocals, or there is a layer of distortion and/or layering that it is hard to pick the voice out. However, once I'd clicked into what it was I was listening to, I began to find the album more and more enjoyable.

One of the things we like to do is give labels to things, and put things in boxes. While people (and I suspect Decay is one of theses) dislike this practice and cry "I'm an individual" , the practice does have a lot of benefit in setting some background or reference when talking about things. Anyway, I think we need a new category for music: "Pop-Metal". This is heavy guitars, loud to screaming singing, but with a softening that takes away the harsh nastiness of Heavy Metal. Anyway, I think Evanescence definitely falls into this category. This does mean that their sound is too soft for the average headbanger (St. Anger this album is not), while too dark and loud for most boppers (heaven help us if Ms. Spears tries to mutilate their songs the way she did "I Love Rock'n'Roll").

So, in closing, I'd say give the CD a few listens and try not to expect the same sound "Bring Me To Life" introduced us to.