"The Open Door" was released on September 25, 2006. It is twenty years old today, and EVANESCENCE are marking it with a remastered, expanded deluxe edition arriving November 6 through Craft Recordings on 2-LP, CD and digital.
Alongside the original album, the set gathers three rarities from the era — "If You Don't Mind", "Together Again" and "The Last Song I'm Wasting On You" — plus a previously unreleased demo of "Good Enough", the album's closer and its quietest moment. The demo is the genuine draw: an early look at a song built almost entirely from Amy Lee's voice and a piano.
Some context for why this album matters more than a catalogue anniversary usually does. "Fallen" had made EVANESCENCE a global phenomenon and won two Grammys, and the follow-up arrived carrying expectations that would have flattened most bands. Instead, with Lee taking far greater creative control, the record pushed outward — sweeping orchestration, choral arrangements, electronic texture, piano-led writing — and set her voice against music that moved from crushing to near-silent inside the same song. It sounded unmistakably like EVANESCENCE while opening ground they had not stood on before.
It worked commercially too. "The Open Door" debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and No. 2 in the UK, sold more than 447,000 copies in its first week, and landed in the Top 5 in more than fifteen countries. "Call Me When You're Sober" became a Top 10 Hot 100 hit; the piano-driven "Lithium" turned into an enduring live staple; "Sweet Sacrifice" earned a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance.
Twenty years on, it keeps finding people. "Sweet Sacrifice" has had a recent resurgence on TikTok, and the band played "Like You" live for the first time on the current arena tour — a performance Kerrang! called "exquisitely beautiful", crediting it with "the kind of intimacy some might consider impossible in a space of this size".
The 2-LP set comes in a deluxe gatefold, with black vinyl plus a long list of limited colour pressings: Midnight Nebula through the EVANESCENCE store, Metallic Blue via Craft Recordings, Sea Glass at Barnes & Noble, Ghost Blend at Books-A-Million, Mercury Blend through Revolver, Opaque Ivory at independent record stores and Translucent Cobalt for select international retailers. All formats are up for pre-order now.
The reissue lands mid-cycle rather than in a quiet year. "Sanctuary", the band's sixth album, came out in June 2026 and carried "Afterlife" — the No. 1 rock hit written for Netflix's "Devil May Cry" — along with collaborations featuring K.Flay, Halsey, Poppy and SPIRITBOX's Courtney LaPlante. The world tour behind it runs through Asia and into Australia and New Zealand in early 2027.