Netflix’s Devil May Cry Anime Brought Evanescence Back to Life With a New Song

In the lead up to the premiere of the newest anime adaptation for Capcom’s hack-and-slash action series, Devil May Cry, Netflix released a music video featuring a new song from famed goth alternative metal band, Evanescence.

The song, “Afterlife” was teased ahead of its official release with a cryptic video tease of frontwoman Amy Lee posting a video of herself on X/Twitter doing a countdown before throwing up demon head hand signs. Folks quickly sussed out it had something to do with Devil May Cry the moment the Netflix series executive producer Adi Shankar quote retweeted it with a shocked face emoji. Which brings us to today the release of the lyric video with exclusive clips from the series that plays like a mid-aught YouTube AMV.

Fair warning: The music video shows off a lot of footage from the series, so if your need to get your fix for 2000s-era metal band anime music videos trumps your aversion to spoilers, by all means, indulge.

If the above music video has you feeling nostalgic for the halcyon days of your edgy teenage youth (be real, we all had that phase), that was by design. Speaking on X/Twitter, Shankar teased that the anime was meant to to be shaped by different aesthetics, reflecting the times each game in the series was set in.

“In my DMC Universe each season will have a different feel to emulate the way each game has a different feel. That means a different theme song each season and a completely different title design each season,” Shankar tweeted. “My DMC Universe is set in a late ’90s/early 2000s PS2 era of the world. It’s not set in modern times. It’s set in my memory of the world, pre- and post-9/11. My music choices reflect this. My series features a mix of hits from that era and greatest musical hits from the DMC franchise (reimagined by @powergloveaudio).”

He continued, adding, “You are not prepared for this soundtrack. Anime is not prepared for this soundtrack. Jackpot motherfuckers!”

As we’ve seen with the stupidly appropriate use of Limp Bizkit’s “Rolling” as its opening theme song and Papa Roach’s “Last Resort” in its official trailer, Devil May Cry is poised to play all the hits of the early 2000s. Knowing Evanescence cooked up a new track for the anime as opposed to licensing out songs like “Bring Me To Life” instead only goes to show that Devil May Cry‘s soundtrack didn’t come to play. Let’s hope the eight-episode anime lives up to the hype of its musical accompaniment when it premieres on Netflix on April 3.

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