Anatomy of a Ghost - Evanesce (CD)

All Music Guide

The debut album by Anatomy of a Ghost is utterly unoriginal, by-the-book emo with little to recommend it for any but the style's most diehard followers. The songs all tend to follow the same soft-LOUD-soft-LOUD pattern that started getting a little tired after Nirvana's second album, with occasional shifts into unusual beats or time signatures for no particular reason (the herky-jerky "Set the Stage" really can't seem to make up its mind between two perfectly good rhythms), and the lyrics are about as embarrassing as song titles like "Streetlights, Empty Wells" and "Beauty is in Its Embrace" would lead one to expect. On the positive side, singer John Hurley has a pleasant voice that in its quieter moments resembles that of the Shins' James Mercer, and the young band handle the show-offy dynamic shifts with relative ease. Still, even a casual emo fan might find, while listening to Evanesce, that they've heard all of this before, and better.

- Stewart Mason, All Music Guide