A lot has happened in Amy Lee's world since Evanescence became multi-platinum rock stars with their Grammy-winning 2003 major-label debut, Fallen. "I've just gone through a complete life change," Lee says from the New York home she just moved to after five years in Los Angeles. "Everything came to a head with old relationships," she adds, referring to the well-publicized, ongoing legal dispute with their former manager and the departure of guitarist Ben Moody. Terry Balsamo has since stepped in as the band's guitarist and Lee's new collaborator.

That change dominates the band's long-awaited sophomore effort, The Open Door, due October 3rd. "This record is totally inspired by the crazy stuff that's gone on over the past year or so," Lee says of the new album, which was again produced by Dave Fortman. "Terry and I were writing together for a year and a half. And throughout it all, everything happened. It was really this what-the-hell's-going-on kind of time."

Lee says some of the most harrowing difficulties -- including Balsamo's stroke last November -- had a profound effect on the songwriting. "You write and write and write, and you get inspired by things that are going on," she says. "Then something happens that is just so real and scary, and it makes your heart beat again. And it inspired two songs that are my very favorite songs on the whole record."

The first is the lead single, "Call Me When You're Sober," and the second, the ballad "Good Enough." While Lee says the album "goes through a complete spectrum of darkness and scary stuff and emotion," "Good Enough" is "completely different than anything I've ever written before. It's not about strain, struggle, pain and everything. It's a happy song."

Uplifting moments color the optimistically titled The Open Door, with a choir on a number of tracks, as well as strings recorded inside a chapel.

"It's so much more grown-up than Fallen," Lee adds, crediting her newfound creative relationship with Balsamo for Evanescence's evolution. "When we started writing, I didn't know what I was in for," she says. "I knew I was going to love it because I had so much more freedom than I had before for a lot of reasons. But I didn't realize what a great team Terry and I would make. He lifts me up as a writer and makes everything I write a little bit cooler.

"I was in shock," she continues. "We were both kind of in shock at the stuff we were coming up with. I couldn't be happier with it. I wish the stuff was coming out tomorrow, I really do."