Evanescence’s Amy Lee Delivers Intimate Cover of Portishead’s ‘It’s a Fire’

Evanescence's Amy Lee continues to carve her own path musically. After releasing and supporting 2011's self-titled Evanescence album, Lee took a little time off to start a family, then returned to music minus her band working on some film scoring. Though the band is getting back together to play some dates this fall and presumably to work on their next album, Lee continues to show there's more music in her than what people have come to know from Evanescence. Her latest offering finds the vocalist delivering an intimate performance of the Portishead song "It's a Fire."

"This song (and all of Dummy, actually) was a huge inspiration to me in my formative years," says Lee in a Facebook posting. "I listened to the song recently for the first time in a long time, and fell in love with it all over again. The lyrics are so powerful, they helped me through so much. It is my honor to do this little homemade homage to a group I have loved so much for so long."

For those unfamiliar, Portishead was birthed in the early '90s and was frequently lumped in with the trip-hop genre. They gained critical acclaim for their 1994 debut album Dummy. Though not one of the album's singles, "It's a Fire" garnered some attention from fans due the emotionally rich and powerful vocal from Beth Gibbons which was laid out over a steady beat that kept the song moving along. You can hear the original below.

As for Lee, her powerhouse vocals are scaled back in this setting, though there is plenty of strength and soul in how she delivers "It's a Fire," pretty much matching what Gibbons did for Portishead. In Lee's version, the trip-hop beats are gone, but there is still some string instrumentation added to what is essentially a piano ballad. It's a beautiful piece of music that Lee more than does justice to and likely just fuels the fire amongst Evanescence fans anxiously awaiting their eventual musical return. The cover is the first video to go up on Lee's new YouTube channel, which can be found here.

As stated, Evanescence have a handful of dates this fall, performing at Nashville's Marathon Music Works on Nov. 13, Dallas' South Side Ballroom on Nov. 15 and Los Angeles' Wiltern on Nov. 17 before jetting off to Japan for their Ozzfest Japan appearance on Nov. 22.

Portishead, "It's a Fire"

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