EVANESCENCE frontwoman Amy Lee tells MTV News that she has just recorded her first score with composer Dave Eggar for the indie film "War Story", which will premiere later this month at Sundance.
"It's going to surprise my fans. It's not what you'd expect; the film is very dark, very introspective. There's not even a lot of dialogue, which is great, because to me it makes this beautiful, sad platform for music," Lee says. "There's a lot of blending of sounds, a lot of ominous tones. I play a lot of keyboard, and a lot of Taurus pedal. There's a lot of low drones.
"There are moments of playing, and it's musical, but there are a lot of moments where Dave and I just built walls of sounds, out of blaring cellos and trombones and synthesizers and harp, all on top of each other," she continues. "Sort of creating new sounds. It's not, like, a soundtrack. it's an atmosphere."
Lee also says that the experience of scoring a film is one she hopes to replicate again very soon.
"I've been talking about wanting to score forever, and this was my first opportunity to explore that," she says. "Dave and I were already talking about taking a meeting for another film, and I definitely want to work with him again. I'm open-minded. I really like to be in a free place where I'm not boxing myself in; I say that all the time, but that's the goal right now."
Lee is reportedly suing her longtime label, Wind-Up Records, for at least $1.5 million over unpaid royalties and other alleged misdeeds, according to TMZ.com. Lee has also alleged in her lawsuit that the company attempted to sabotage the band's career by assigning them to under-qualified promotion executives who lacked fresh ideas on how to market and promote the group.
Asked by MTV News about the lawsuit, Lee said: "I can't say a word, I'm sorry. It's really for the best right now."
TMZ.com did not cite its sources for the report, nor did it obtain any official statements from either the label or Lee, who is seeking over $1.5 million in back royalties.
EVANESCENCE is actually no longer part of the Wind-Up roster. Back in November, Wind-Up sold most of its back catalog to the Bicycle Music Company and Concord Music Group, including the entire catalogs of EVANESCENCE, CREED, SEETHER and others.
EVANESCENCE, whose third, self-titled album debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 when it came out in 2011, has sold 25 million records worldwide.
That last disc came out after a five-year hiatus and Lee told The Pulse Of Radio at the time that she wasn't even sure if she wanted to keep on making rock music. "For me, it had really been such a long time for us coming back after, you know, five years or four years of not doing it, living normal life and not even thinking about EVANESCENCE for a lot of that time, it starts to feel like, is this really still me?" she said. "You know, have I outgrown this thing? Is this going to work anymore? You know. Who am I? [laughs]"
The band toured through mid-2012 in support of the CD, but has been inactive since then.
The first of four videos on the making of "The Satanist", the long-awaited new album from Polish extreme metallers BEHEMOTH, can be seen below.
"The Satanist" will be released on February 3 in the U.K., February 4 in North America and Poland, February 5 in Japan, and February 7 in the rest of the world. Pre-order bundles, include: CD, LP, t-shirt, as well as the deluxe box set, and are available at metalblade.com/behemoth in North America, nuclearblast.de/behemoth in Europe, and on behemoth-store.com (digibook and box).
BEHEMOTH's video for the new single "Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel" can be seen below. This visual masterpiece was produced by Grupa 13 and is one of BEHEMOTH's most unsettling and unique works to date.
BEHEMOTH frontman Adam "Nergal" Darski states about the video: "Yes, we took all the time in the world to complete this project. And we did everything that was humanely possible to accurately express our vision. We crossed the Rubicon.
"'Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel' is an ecstatic manifest of our unrestrained artistic will, where we dare to reach out beyond the limitations of the heavy metal genre. And it's only the beginning."
"The Satanist" deluxe box, which is available in North America as an European import, includes: CD/DVD digibook in silver mirror slipcase with a high-quality 44-page booklet (with gold foil, UV gloss lamination), supersize poster flag (approx. 3.5' x 5'), wooden black inverted rosary cross, metal pin, black envelope with black communion wafers. The DVD, "Live Barbarossa", includes a professionally filmed show in Ekaterinburg, Russia, as well as 30-minute documentary about the creative process behind "The Satanist".
"The Satanist" was produced by BEHEMOTH, Wojtek and Slawek Wieslawscy and Daniel Bergstrand at Hertz Studio. The CD was mixed by Matt Hyde (SLAYER) and mastered by Ted Jensen (METALLICA, AC/DC) at Sterling Sound in New York City. The cover art for "The Satanist" was painted by renowned Russian painter and occultist Denis Forkas. The paint used included some of Nergal's own blood. Additional art and design was completed by Metastazis (PARADISE LOST) and Zbigniew Bielak (WATAIN, GHOST).
"I wanted to incorporate some of my DNA into the art," Nergal told Australia's Heavy magazine about having his blood included in "The Satanist" artwork.
"This album seems to be so defining of who we are now as people and as individuals, and considering all the instances in recent years, [we wanted] to make it more 'ours' than it is usually."
In a recent interview with Revolver magazine, Darski described BEHEMOTH's new songs as "very atmospheric" and "very emotional." "Think BURZUM meets NEW ORDER meets KILLING JOKE," he added. But at the same time, fans shouldn't expect the album to sound too far removed from BEHEMOTH's past efforts. "Take SLAYER, for example," Darski said. "Whatever genre they deal with, they still end up sounding like SLAYER. Even when they were flirting with nu-metal, it was a SLAYER record. Same with BEHEMOTH."
According to Darski, at least some of the inspiration for the new BEHEMOTH album came from his five-month bout of leukemia he overcame in January 2011, after receiving a bone-marrow transplant. "When I was in the hospital, I was collecting experiences and emotions," he said. "I'm pretty sure that it's coming out now. There are moments I catch myself thinking about how my state was back then. It was me versus life, me versus death. It definitely changed my thoughts a lot. It's 100 percent being reflected in the record and songs I'm writing nowadays. I'm way more radical than I used to be."
"The Satanist" track listing:
01. Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel
02. Furor Divinus
03. Messe Noire
04. Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer
05. Amen
06. The Satanist
07. Ben Sahar
08. In the Absence ov Light
09. O Father O Satan O Sun!