Looking for a Halloween Hit? Listen to "Lacrymosa" by Evanescence!

In light of Halloween, Evanescence takes us back to some of our “spookier” days characterized by teenage angst with their 2006 album, The Open Door. Sampling Mozart’s dramatic choral-orchestral piece, Lacrimosa, the seventh track on the album offers a modern twist on the classical composition with their signature gothic rock sound. Opening the song with a foreboding percussive beat that imitates rolling thunder, the band suspensfully builds onto the instrumentation until the grand release in the second chorus. Supported by the choir, Amy Lee, the lead singer, delivers powerful vocals that hauntingly convey a sense of catharsis. Then, marked by a meter change, the post-chorus offers a brief break from the grand instrumentation that exposes the lyrics, “I can’t change who I am,” which Lee sings with vulnerability and realization. Signifying a shift in attitude, Lee shoots back up into her upper register, singing with conviction and accompanied by the full band, while the electric guitar closes the bridge out with an epic solo. During the final chorus, a second part of orchestral strings joins in, before Lee belts out her closing line. Carrying her intensity into the outro, the orchestral string instruments ascend into the final chord along with the roar of the electric guitar and the resonant voices of the choir. Paying homage to Mozart’s haunting 18th-century piece, Evanescence flawlessly interweaves modern metal elements with the iconic choral harmonies of the Classical Era to create a gothic rock-classical crossover that sets an ominous mood for the month of October.