In 2020, I wonder if there’s any new life yet to be bought to this act. It’s Scuzz Sunday!

• 

You know what time of the week it is! Good Morning, I’m Jacob Braybrooke and I’ve arrived to type up about your daily track on the blog, as it’s my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! This week’s installment of our Scuzz Sundays, our weekly look back at a late-90’s to mid-00’s classic of the Emo-Rock or Pop-Punk ilk, comes from one of the most commercially popular bands of the era, particularly in the territories of Europe, in the Amy Lee female-fronted Gothic Metal group, Evanescence. The band were formed in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1995 by Lee and guitarist Ben Moody. The band’s first major studio album, “Fallen”, followed a string of independent album releases. It was released in 2003, and it has sold over 17 million copies worldwide (That’s probably thanks to their killer record, “Bring Me To Life”, which is still one of their best-known singles), along with winning Evanescence two Grammy Awards, out of five nominations overall. Although the group have dealt with a few line-up changes and the odd hiatus or two, they are still currently active, and make a killing in territories like Finland and Sweden due to their European “Nu-Metal” style. “Going Under” was a single from “Fallen”, and it reached #8 in the UK Singles Chart. It also reached the top ten of the Billboard US Alternative Chart, and also the top ten of Brazil, Italy and New Zealand as well. Let’s take a listen to it below.

In an interview with MTV News, Amy Lee explained: “The lyrics are about coming out of a bad relationship, and when you’re at the end of the rope, when you’re at the point where you realize something has to change… It’s a very strong song”, and Lee matches these lyrics about “drowning” to the bad arms of a toxic partner with an undeniably hook-driven, Pop sensibility, despite the heavy guitar chords and the soft hip-hop inspired backing beats. Lee takes on a very self-reflective, first-person stance vocally, as she chants: “Drowning in you/I’m falling forever/I’ve got to break through/I’m going under” above an amplified layer of grinding bass guitar riffs and heavy sets of reverberated drum beats, and you’ll find harsh guitar licks in the verses, instead of any twinkling piano melodies. The lyrics play quite heavy on the intensity of love, and the consumption that falling in love can bring to your mental health, as Lee pleads “Blurring and stirring the truth and the lies/So I don’t know what’s real and what’s not” in the verse, before an interlude of echoed synth rhythms signal for a quick post-bridge, before we get a guitar solo which feels very celebratory and anthemic. It mostly feels like everything has been turned up to eleven in volume instrumentally, and for me, well… It actually works really damn well. Lee manages to push quite a well-layered vocal performance throughout the track, and at a time where her male co-horts would often get main production credits when she was doing a lot of the work herself is something worth praising. The anthemic feel of the lead vocals and the guitars together are pretty cheesy, and it gained comparisons to Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit at the time, but again, it manages to feel rather anthemic and enjoyable, instead of cliche or cringeworthy. It’s just Pop, but with heavy chords, and the hooks luckily have the impact needed to flesh it out adequately. To be honest with you, I may usually pick quite a Crap song to cover for the Scuzz Sundays feature because it’s just a bit of fun, so it’s a welcome change of pace to find something that has a bit of value here and I can see why “Going Under” was such a big hit. Good stuff.

• 

Thank you for reading your new Scuzz Sundays post! As per usual, we’ll be back to our usual business again tomorrow, with yet another daily track. I’ll be kicking off the new week with an in-depth look at a recent-ish track that I sadly didn’t get around to covering nearer to it’s release. It comes from just a small band from Portland, Oregon in the United States who like to explore “dreamy landscapes” and “hazy memories” through the means of Shoegaze, Alternative Folk and Dream-Rock. Their latest work explores “the unease of modern band life” and “themes of nostalgia and hope” through the ethereal chimes of the band’s vocalist Sarah Nienabar in a packaged-up psychedelic production. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/