Carly Smithson’s Band Receives A Cease and Desist, Changes Name to We Are the Fallen
I became momentarily confused yesterday when updating my post on the debut of Carly Smithson’s new band, The Fallen.
The group, featuring 3 ex-Evanesence members, were calling themselves “We Are the Fallen” on their MySpace page. For a minute I thought I got the name wrong, until I checked the original story I posted from USA Today.
So, it turns out the group re-branding may be about a band in Pennsylvania who have been calling themselves The Fallen since 2005. Their legal peeps sent the band a Cease and Desist order on June 18, after the initial announcement. (via vftw)
Also, the band is finally getting emails out today to people who signed up for the free download. Carly posted a vlog yesterday explaining that due to the website’s database being overwhelmed with requests–there would be a delay in distributing the downloads, but promised the problems would be sorted out soon.
Well, kinda sorta. When I surfed over to wearethefallen.com to retrieve my download, I got a big, ugly database error, but I did manage to get my download. So, if you’re having problems, keep trying! (ha ha, overload that database even more!)
For those of you who haven’t heard it yet, here’s We Are the Fallen’s first single “Bury Me Alive”:
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The band will start touring in September, and the plan is to release a couple of singles every few months or so. An album will be eventually released.
I mentioned yesterday the song is very Evanescence-ish–a bit old-fashioned and dated even now after only 6 years since the release of the band’s album debut, Fallen. I wonder if Carly will be able to come out of Amy Lee’s shadow, particularly if the band’s music doesn’t evolve much beyond Evanescence’s older material. But, this is probably Carly’s best shot at finally making it in the music biz, so good luck to her.
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45 Responses to “Carly Smithson’s Band Receives A Cease and Desist, Changes Name to We Are the Fallen”
I doubt they’ll ever be as successful as they were 6 years ago. And Carly’s vocals here sound very similar to Amy Lee’s style. Good luck to Carly indeed.
Oh my, that sounds just like Evanescence. Her voice isn’t as strong as Amy Lee’s, but she’s got the sound right. Don’t know if this was a great move for Carly.
I honestly think Carly’s voice would be good at pop — given her debut album — but she seems bent on doing rock, so there you are, I guess.
Blasphemously enough, her tone and vocal colors actually appeal to me a bit more than Amy Lee’s do (just a matter of tastes, there, obviously), even though I do think that Lee’s is stronger and more flexible. Their voices are pretty much alike though, and they’re both good. If these guys just keep doing more Evanescence-type songs, they’re going to look just like a knock-off, though. Doesn’t help when Carly dresses and poses like her, too. Evolve your vision, you guys.
I really liked “Bury Me Alive” when I heard it yesterday from the link from the band’s MS. All I can say is OUCH about the cease and desist order! I wish Carly the best of luck though.
I agree with mj in that it sounds dated. I guess I’m just tired of post-grunge rehash. Next!
That’s sooo Evanescence. I was crazy about them back in the day. I remember when they appeared thinking they were like Linkin Park but with a female voice. LP is still around, but I think they kinda adapted to the times, I don’t feel the same with this song.
It’s good, but just not something I’d care these days.
She sounds great though. I wanna see what other songs they have.
Very Evanesence – esk, I liked Evanesence, so this sounds great to me.
I barely watched the David Cook season, she was most likely gone when I tuned in, did she always sound similiar to Amy Lee or that just for this particular group?
Even though Carly has a better range than Amy Lee, she is kinda like the poor man’s version of her, especially since she doesn’t play piano and (as of right now) does not have a good stage presence for a rock band. Flipping your hair up and down does not count. I’ll give Carly the benefit of the doubt that she is writing with them though?
If Carly does fail at this too though, you know she’ll at least have someone to blame- the band.. (considering she never owns up to any of her past failures) eek, did I just give away the fact that I am not her biggest fan? :rolleyes_tb:
Well at least it’s a Philly band and not Evanescence sending the cease and desist! When I read the headline only, I thought, “Oh No!” for Carly.
I agree this seems to be Carly’s best shot, and I like the song. I also agree with “evolve your vision, you guys.”
Carly’s got a pretty wide variety of things she can do with her voice, I’d say. But this seems to be what she really really really likes to do — so she sounded like this on the show a lot. Obviously, that didn’t go over brilliantly with the audience — but a big part of the problem wasn’t the singing but what seemed to me her often uncomfortable, trying-too-hard stage presence. It got in the way of her song interpretation most of the time, for me. And I really think she’s got talent.
Carly deserves success. She is too talented to just simply not have a career in music. I think this is her best shot at stardom and I wish her all the best. People should remember that Amy Lee was the one who fired the band, so instead of comparing them like everyone is bent on doing, people should look at this as a completely new band. Of course they are going to have some music that sounds like “Old Evanescence.” That’s the type of music they play and that isn’t going to change.
i liked bury me alive..very evanescence-y and i like carly….her voice is pretty good and i think her stage presence in AL last year was not great partly cos of the wierd clothes she used to wear (remember simon asked her to change her stylist one point, and another time, there were rumours she was pregnant cos of this wierd thing she wore which made her tummy look big)
Wow, that really does sound like Evanesence. I hope they develop more as the group grows together, or people will never give her a chance.
Her voice sounds good though.
I always thought she looked pissed off/mean on AI last year. Always very strained. Her voice was great, she was just a bit off-putting for me.
Evanescence with a Faux Amy Lee!! And the faux but is glaringly evident, and a bit pathetic.
I loved Evanescence, but my reason for loving it was primarily Amy Lee’s voice and secondly her Piano. This so called reincarnation does not cut the mustard on either count.
Who ever said Smithson sounds like Lee is wrong in my opinion. It’s like saying an Irish pony can run like a thoroughbred horse – It can’t.
The single itself shows no evolution whatsoever in the sound. It is almost this song was written 4 years ago for an Evanescence album.
ETA:
She most certainly does not.
I think I’ll go listen to “my Immortal” now.
My hubby is an absolute diehard Evanescence fan and I got him to listen to this song without him knowing it was Carly singing it. He said “wait, this isn’t Amy Lee”. I told him it was Carly from AI last year and he said that it sounds an awful lot like Evanescence but Carly’s voice isn’t as good as Amy Lee’s. My hubby’s the afficianodo on Evanescence and he even said the song sounded dated. He also said “it ain’t no Evanescence though.” No edge I guess.
Anyway it’s nice that Carly has hopefully something that will gel for her to become famous. However I think it will be in the shadow of Amy Lee.
Your husband is a smart cookie. And I commend his taste in music. :clap_tb:
Sunn, have you even heard Carly sing before this song? Amy’s voice is definitely good but she has no where near the range of Carly. In fact, not many people do. Not that having range makes someone a great singer or not, but Carly has a huge range.
This really sucks for Carly…it’s like she truly has a black cloud hovering over her career. Hopefully this can be forgotten quickly and they can have some minor success. I prefer Carly’s voice to Amy’s (who sounds a little whiny at times live, IMO) but they even look like they could be sisters. :/
Then again, look at all the bands reuniting this summer…if they put out some catchy stuff, maybe it won’t matter if the sound is a little dated.
No. But I’ve heard her butcher “Bring Back To life” (it’s on youtube).
I was thinking (since the name is a problem) they should call themselves the New Originals, like in Spinal Tap. Or maybe “New Evanescence.” New Ev. What Ev.
It all works.
I like Carly, even though I really didn’t care for her all-over-the-map style. She has a gorgeous voice on the simpler stuff, like poor “Shadow of Your Smile,” which got no love. But is she the new Barbra (okay, more Linda Eder, but in that vein), the new Tiffany, the new Ann Wilson, the new Amy Lee, the new Amy Winehouse? Or just Carly, the girl herself, whose voice doesn’t fit the tattoos?
Hope it works out for her.
Well it just goes to show that you can have a technically superior voice and wide range but it is always more than just the voice and you don’t even have to have a great voice if you got all the other requirements in spades – see Neil Young, Bob Dylan….
Well, I wouldn’t say “pony,” in general, although maybe when you’re comparing them as *rock* singers, specifically.
Have you listened to Carly’s old album? She’s a very very capable singer, and her voice can do a lot of things, really. But unfortunately I think the things it’s best at and where it’s shown off to the best advantage lie in pop. She doesn’t have the rock singer strengths, as much. But since rock is the music she likes, I guess she’s stuck with that. Better to do what you like for a living, I guess, but, yeah, she’ll be compared to her disadvantage here.
Nevertheless, I kind of bet that even if the greatest singer (and throw in pianist) in the world replaced Amy Lee in this band, most fans would compare her negatively — especially since they seem bent on doing pretty much exactly the same kind of songs they did previously. A band is a band and we get used to one sound and one approach, and anything else is going to sound funny.
I think they need to come up with some new musical ideas.
edit: NO personal attacks DO NOT question the motives of your fellow posters. Your angry defensive post just earned you a spot in moderation
I like Carly and I like when she sings rock. I also like that she found musicians with a vibe that she digs, because I do think she’d benefit from a band environment. But that picture is a bit too knock off creepy. I get that they can’t suddenly do a musical 180, but they need to play up the Carly-ness of Carly to draw some distinction. Sometimes reformed bands do okay when they break from the lead singer, like Alter Bridge. I wish her lots of luck.
You really think she’s that bad at singing “Bring Me to Life”? I went to the tour stop in Detroit and I thought she was excellent. It’s not like listening to the original, but since when have any of the Idol covers been that way? Haha.
If we’re still talking about Carly then IMO, she has a mediocre voice and an atrocious singing technique. she screams songs, she doesn’t sing them. Everything I’ve heard her sing was sung badly. Does she have a range? I don’t think it’s as big as people think it is, her voice stains and loses pitch when she goes for the hard notes. If you listen to her singing the song streamed on this thread, you’ll hear the auto-tune kick in on the high notes.
Hearing her live is all the evidence I need – she is a mediocre singer at best, IMO.
If I were to give a female idol example of superior range and technique I’d name Kelly Clarkson. That girl is sublime live.
ETA:
Yes I really do.
She is actually capable of doing something else. She does sometimes. Don’t know why she reverts to this tense, screaming thing as often as she has, because she clearly doesn’t need to when she’s on her technique.
That’s all I can say in her defense. She does have the goods. There’s evidence. She too often has not delivered them, it’s true.
Hope she delivers them more often in the future — and that this band shifts its style a bit so the negative comparisons aren’t just endless.
I suspect that this song was whipped up pretty quickly to captialize on the buzz of the announcement, perhaps even an unreleased song written during the Evanescence days pulled out for the occasion since they haven’t really had a chance to get together and gel as a band and hopefully start writing new tunes, fresh. Don’t use any unreleased Evanescence songs, trust us guys, just say no. Find a new direction that is going to better propel you into your own spotlight, unfettered by ghosts of lead singers past. Bwah.
I remember when Evanescence came out with ‘Bring me To Life’ i couldn’t buy the album fast enough. That was when they sounded great, and I loved the album.
However the 2nd album… yeah, the lead song didn’t do much for me (what was it? ‘Call me when your sober’ or something? I didn’t hate it but I didn’t think much of it) and the other songs just weren’t good so I never bought it and sort of thought Evanescence would be a one-album wonder which I thought was a shame because the first album was so good. Had no idea that the lead singer had fired all the musicians who actually gave the first album it’s sound, but that makes a lot of sense.
Sorry all you Amy Lee lovers out there, she’s a pretty damn good singer but Carly absolutely *smokes* her vocally. Not even close. Range, pitch, control, tone… it’s just no contest. And this song sounds fantastic, much better than anything off the 2nd Evanescence album I think.
As for it being ’sound-alike’ to the first album – it absolutely does sound like old Evanescence. Which ain’t a bad thing, as the old Evanescence rocked.
If only the new Guns n Roses had sounded like the old Guns n Roses, for example. I know bands need to evolve and grow in their sound, but sometimes they virtually change their identities and leave fans behind.
Carly has finally found her natural sound/identity and also has had the good fortune to be pulled into a band that is already solid on what it’s identity and fanbase is, and also she doesn’t have to worry about writing the songs as obviously these guys are already hitmakers.
This is Carly’s best shot at success and judging from this song I think she’ll do well. Good for her
Of course, they’re going to sound reminiscent of Evanescence. Three of the original members of Evanescence are in the band, including Ben Moody who was the true heart and soul of Evanescence!
Amy Lee was just the voice, people. Ben Moody steered the musical ship back when Evanescence was big (and good).
I said in the other thread that Carly doesn’t have the same haunting quality to her voice that Amy has, and that’s what’s absent here, at least in this song. That being said, listen to the audio of the live performance during their presser yesterday. Carly sounded more convincing there to me than she did on this recorded track.
The thing about Carly is that, as others have mentioned, at times she can be a bit sound-alike to other big-voiced female vocalists. She’s got some Grace Slick in her, and she’s got some Anne Wilson in her. But, she does also have some Amy Lee in her.
So, if she’s going to channel any singer, she needs to make sure it’s the latter, and not one of the former. Preferably, though, as the band plays more and more together, she’ll be able to develop the ethereal essence of Amy’s vocals but do so without having to mimic her outright.
Lyndsey Parker from the Reality Rocks blog (Yahoo!) just put up her interviews of Carly and some video footage of them rehearsing.
http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/realityrocks/246042/carly-smithson-rocks-with-we-are-the-fallen
I totally agree with Daniel B and Noctem seizure, you guys are spot on!
Certainly it sounds like Evanescence (in the good days) because 3 of The Fallen members are form there, and Ben Moody was the musical mastermind in the 1st Evanescence album, that sound belongs to him, so he can use it.
Amy Lee is a great vocalist and piano player, but lacks the catchy mainstream-oriented writing Ben provided Evanescence, I agree the 2nd album weren’t half as good as Fallen.
And I have a question… the band is WE ARE THE FALLEN? THE FALLEN? or Are they going to change it? (which I think would be an excellent idea).
Interesting discussion on Carly vs Amy Lee’s vocal skills/styles. The more I think about it, the more I realize the two don’t sound that alike at all. Amy has that ethereal quality to her upper register, while Carly… well, she tends to screech and bellow a bit when she goes high. I actually have a huge girl crush on Carly’s lower register, which tonally is much richer IMO than Amy Lee’s lower register, but I was not a big fan of Carly’s screaming upper register on AI. It suits some songs like when she’s going for the Heart/Grace Slick sound, but not all the time.
It seems with Bury Me Alive, she’s trying a bit too hard to imitate the ethereal quality of Amy Lee’s voice by going more falsetto and not always going to the full blown Carly-voice. One would think that I’d appreciate that, since I didn’t love the way she sang in her upper register before, but surprisingly, I don’t. Carly sounds thin when she does that, and pales in comparison to Amy Lee’s version, which has that haunting, airy quality but wasn’t quite falsetto– Amy Lee stayed at that sweet spot between head and chest voice, which I guess made it sound stronger, I guess?
Anyway, I am still looking forward to more stuff from this band, cuz I do like Carly overall, and girl *can* sound awesome with the right songs. Maybe the band can adapt their songwriting so it’ll start suiting her natural voice better so won’t have to keep mimicing Amy’s sound.
I agree. Carly is by far the superior singer. She could give this band a whole new slant. The further away she gets from the monotoned Amy Lee-style caterwauling, the better. I wish Carly success with this venture, but I just can’t get behind an Evan v2.
The first 23 seconds are excellent.
I could be wrong, the vocals experts correct me, but a falsetto or upper range can be worked on with vocal coaching can it not if you already have a voice with range?
I am not really familar with Evanescence except the one hit, but those are killer guitars.
Carly Smithson is THE most underrated female vocalist to come out of IDOL. Ever. And I don’t care about Amy Lee. Carly can sing her butt of. Untouchable.
The could call the band We Are Porky Pigs Bastard Child and if they can tap into the energy that the original Evanescence album did then I think they have a better than fighting chance…even in this torrent-infested digital age of “free” music. It sounds like they are selling the show and the live band experience to move the music on the back end.
Yes, I really think so (and you can take the female qualifier out of that and IMO that will still work.) Carly & John did a pretty good interview with cnn.com too. I think this is the link
Embedded video from CNN Video
Somebody put it up on Youtube too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPmfNcrmfuU
Based on some of the comments, I clicked on the link, thinking I might not like the song, but to my surprise, I really liked it. Carly has such a great voice,(better than any female from this season imo)so I will probably buy her music. I am glad she has a deal. She deserves it.
Heh… when I went to that CNN link, I ended up watching a video for “Revenge of the Fallen”, the new Transformers movie.
Carly’s voice sounds good, but the overall effect is just a bit popish, sort of an Evanescence-lite. But I think there is some potential here if the song writers in this group can truly embrace Carly’s more girly sound and (amazing) range.
Still, she sounds better here then in her solo efforts. I’m ready to hear the next song.
Yes, they wouldn’t let me link it directly for some reason, but that YouTube video I guarantee isn’t a Rick Roll . :lol_wp: I hope you like the Transformers video anyway.
Actually, on her album — which I guess she now despises because it’s pop — seems to me she demonstrates pretty clearly that she can sing high without screaming. I think she’s probably *trying* to scream or bellow or something when she’s in rocker-voice mode. And she should probably just let it go and let her high notes out, since she does have them (or did when she was a teenager — maybe she’s destroyed them with smoking, or something, for all I know.) She used to have non-forced high notes, is all I know. And they were good — just like her low register.
The mystery with Carly seems to be why she often doesn’t use the really great voice that she has proven she has.
Paramore is so much more hip.