"Lost" by Within Temptation from The Unforgiving

"Help me—I'm buried alive!"

That plea from this song haunted me from my first listen to the new concept album The Unforgiving from Within Temptation. (Which is based on an an upcoming graphic novel, which this album very much makes me want to read.)

"Lost" is one unapologetic rock ballad that may be much of why the album's labeled "gothic" by iTunes. The song's narrator is fighting to help someone—(with what little has been revealed about the narrator Sinéad so far, I suspect it's her daughter)—despite what it's costing her and will cost her. It even sounds like the narrator might've lost the person they're seeking but doesn't want to admit that.

It's dark, it's creepy, it's haunting—and it's beautiful. Overall, I think Within Temptation has produced better music, but they've put this together well. The strings accent in the song also fits perfectly.

The focus is on the vocalist Sharon Den Adel and her voice, which fits the emotions of the songs so well. She even jumps a bit between styles in a way that is not easy to duplicate. (For me, anyway.)

For anyone familiar with the band, Sharon Den Adel overall sings similarly to how she does on "Frozen", a beat closer to "All I Need", and an overall sound that fits Within Temptation, but is hard to directly compare to any of their prior songs. It honestly sounds like people in general probably expect gothic to sound like, though I actually can't think of any gothic bands with this sound.

Overall, a great rock ballad with a gothic tone, but bypass it if you dislike "dark" stories, because I think it'll haunt you.

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Lyrics: 5/5
Music: 4/5
Vocal(s): 5/5
Overall: 9/10

Check out "Lost" on Amazon!

"Sinéad" by Within Temptation from The Unforgiving

If you've followed this blog for awhile, you likely know that my favorite genre tends to be symphonic metal/rock, namely Within Temptation. So you might want to take my review with the grain of salt due to my heavy bias towards it—but also, everyone I've discovered what bands they like and recommended this one to has liked it, as well. (In one case, to the shock of her children.)

First a little background on The Unforgiving: it's a concept album, based on a graphic novel. The main character is Sinéad ("Shin+aid", like first aid for your shin). Sinéad evidently made some bad choices in life, and at death she gets a chance to atone for her sins by hunting down evil spirits or something. (What info I have been able to figure out on the graphic novel is kinda sketchy.)

"Sinéad" is a little over halfway through the album, and seems to be someone pleading with Sinéad to hang on. Life has never been good for Sinéad, but now it looks like it actually might be getting better…

It opens with a delicate declaration to try to save Sinéad (I assume), which gains more layers and energy as things get more desperate and action becomes more urgent. Sharon Den Adel's vocals fit the emotion and fluctuating style perfectly, as usual. It's a gorgeous mix of gentle with with energetic pleading. I'd quote an example of where Sharon Den Adel's voice catches your attention on this one, but I'd end up quoting most of the song.

This is a definite metal song. (Not "heavy", mind you.) I consider the song alternative metal more along the lines of "The Howling" and "Frozen" from The Heart of Everything, while still containing a symphonic influence and epic tone, like Nightwish tends to produce.

Admittedly, iTunes calls the album gothic, and there is gothic influence in there, but whoever assigned the genre to The Unforgiving that needs to listen to some actual gothic music. This isn't. Not really. It's literary gothic, not music gothic.

Still, Within Temptation has been around longer than Evanescence, and they know what they're doing. Lots of practice, this band, and this song definitely has top-rate music for the genre.

Overall, a fantastic introduction to alternative metal with gothic and symphonic influences. However, if you don't like female vocals, songs about people who have had bad lives, or any type of militaristic beat whatsoever, you likely won't like it. I believe you'll be able to appreciate it for what it is, though.

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Lyrics: 5/5
Music: 5/5
Vocal(s): 5/5
Overall: 10/10

Check out "Sinéad" on Amazon!

PS.SQUEE!!! Within Temptation has announced that "Sinéad" will be their second single released from the album! Looking forward to the video!

"Ice Queen" by Within Temptation from Mother Earth

"Haven't you seen the ruins of our world" when winter grips the world—er, hemisphere—by storm? "Ice Queen" personifies winter as a harsh queen, set on destroying the world for as long as she can grasp it.

Here I go, reviewing an old song I really like. But "Ice Queen" is what made Within Temptation popular (less in the US than elsewhere, sadly), back in 2000. (And possibly where Evanescence got some of its inspiration from, actually.)

"Ice Queen" was the band's second single from their second album, (the first single, the touching ballad "Our Farewell", didn't do nearly as well, nor did their first album, Enter). It was the band's first #1 hit single and is one of their signature songs to this day. They play it at every concert.

Take some stringed instruments, combine them with a heartbeat, piano, and standard rock instruments. Add an echo-y electronic sound and what sounds like a possible french horn (or at least some brass instrument)—and overall epic feel and sound, and it's a small wonder this song became such a hit. The acoustic version, with piano and guitar—and several members of the violin family, yay!—is every bit as lovely.

But "Ice Queen" is definitely a rock song. If you don't like hard beats (though the song does vary that, when appropriate in the song), you won't like the song. But it's worth listening to just to hear how the elements fit together—because it's definitely a symphonic metal sound, but it sounds epic and like it would fit a fantasy movie at the same time.

Sharon Den Adel's voice mostly helps you like the song, too. The regular version she sings with her usual clear soprano that adds to the song's epic feel, though some music folks complain that she hits a few false notes. The acoustic version, she sings in a rougher alto, but it still has its soprano moments. (This is actually the song I was singing when I finally figured out how to sing soprano on purpose.)

The acoustic version is worth listening to just to see how much Sharon Den Adel can control and adjust her voice. Some singers can vary their style, but they can't jump from style to style within a song without accidentally smudging them. Sharon Den Adel can. (So can Kelly Clarkson, but that's a topic for another review.)

Lyric-wise, the song's a poetic tribute to winter as a destructive queen. "Ice Queen" is one of two songs that Within Temptation has written, so far, that includes the word hell. Like that other one, ("The Howling"), hell is an adjective, not an expletive.

I'm not calling this song perfect, but this song has a lot to appreciate about it if you're willing to give it a shot. (Except the music videos. Those are kinda a waste of time to watch unless you're more of a Within Temptation junkie than I am.)

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Lyrics: 5/5
Music: 5/5
Vocal(s): 5/5
Overall: 10/10

"In And Out Of Love" by Armin van Buuren from Imagine

Trance music + Sharon Den Adel (singer for Within Tempation) = "In And Out Of Love" by Armin van Buuren. Armin van Buuren is a top DJ (per DJ Mag) who produces trance projects of his own, recruiting artists from various bands to help him with specific songs. He developed the album Imagine to be attractive trance music that proves false the usual complaints about trance music: it's formulaic and all sounds the same.

Not this guy's.

The lyrics are the standard catchy repeats that define trance/dance music, without being formulaic. The topic is love, which is again standard, but the lyrics contain nothing that anyone might find offensive or inappropriate. The song is a tribute to "falling in and out of love", and expresses the emotion of lies breaking a loving relationship.

The synthesized music itself ebbs and flows with the lyrics, which produces an intriguing flow in mood. If you don't like electronica, you will definitely not like this song. If you dislike dance music only because it usually sounds like the selfsame notes throughout or because you don't care for tales of a sexual nature, you'll probably like this.

Sharon Den Adel sings beautifully, as she usually does. There's a reason her voice gets called "angelic" by people. Her singing was also recorded with an echoing quality (called a "wet" sound, in music), and fits the song's emotional feel.

Is "In And Out Of Love" repetitive? Definitely. But dance music is supposed to be, so it's a plus here.

Does it sound like several other trance songs, so you can start singing one and end up in this one? No, not really.

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Lyrics: 4/5
Music: 4/5
Vocal(s): 5/5
Overall: 9/10

"Gatekeeper" by Within Temptation from Enter

Before I looked up this song, I'd heard one song that I was aware of from this album. Enter preceded Within Temptation's skyrocket to fame with Mother Earth. For a hearer only used to The Heart of Everything, the difference in sound is palpable.

Enter, as Within Temptation's first album, is heavily gothic rock, which their later albums progressively start shifting into symphonic metal. In fact, the songs are mostly instrumental, causing an impression that Enter (or at least "Gatekeeper") should be on a fantasy soundtrack. The music is gorgeous if overextended.

Or should, at least, until the growling starts (I think from Robert Westerholt). Excuse me while I grimace. I've come to tolerate growling thanks to the intentional tastes of it used in some songs I otherwise like greatly (like "Tenth Man Down"). Sharon Den Adel sings a slight bit, but it's atop the growling and annoys me personally, but if you like growling, I suspect you'll be happy.

Some people won't like the dark lyrics, which remind me of the (much newer song) "At the Back of Beyond." "One by one they died," sings Sharon, "a massacre that took all night…" In this and other lines, "Gatekeeper" seems to be talking about the "Gatekeeper" Death, but it could use more development.

With so few lyrics, did "Gatekeeper" have to be almost seven minutes long? End, already!

The various segments of the song were certainly lovely, but… I suspect it would've been more effective if used to make different songs.

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Lyrics: 3/5
Music: 4/5
Voice: 3/5
Overall: 6/10

"Dark Wings" by Within Temptation from Mother Earth

"Don't you die on me—you haven't made your peace!" This part of "Dark Wings" more than any other draws me back time and again to listen to this song. It's not Within Temptation's best, but even then it's higher than average.

Anyone who's read Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness or Piercing the Darkness might find themselves reminded of those books with this song, but it's even more Christian-ish than those books in some ways. The narrator is a powerful being that didn't know what she could do until she was chosen to fight. Even with the magic and power that her side has, they're still only able to defeat the "dark wings" through someone's sacrifice, reliquishing their soul.

As a Christian, I of course think of the parallel to Christ. He gave up His everything to be the sacrifice so we could win, in a sense; his death provided a bridge for the chasm of our sin. He is the Light that causes "the night [to turn] into the day".

Sharon Den Adel's voice soars over the music. That is, it was supposed to. It could've been mixed a tad better in trying to accomplish that, as the album version of "Ice Queen" demonstrates, but it's not so bad that it's obvious to a common listener.

But the music! A critical listen to the music proves disappointing, as they've done much better. It's closer to The Silent Force than The Heart of Everything in sound, but then the Mother Earth came out before those two.

If you like the band, you'll likely like the song, but it may not be your favorite.

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Lyrics: 5/5
Music: 4/5
Vocal(s): 4/5
Overall: 8/10

"Frozen" by Within Temptation from The Heart of Everything

"Tell me I'm frozen—what can I do?! Can't tell the reasons I did it for you!"

Like some other listeners, I wasn't sure what I thought of this song on the first listen. Other new songs like "Hand of Sorrow" and "The Truth Beneath the Rose" had caught my attention at the get-go.

But upon seeing the music video and reading the lyrics, I came to love "Frozen". (I know, I know; I'm a huge fan of all Within Temptation songs, it seems; I'll disillusion you of that, someday.) The rocky ballad "Frozen" is one of the band's singles for the UK. It's a bit softer than a lot of their "rock" or "metal" songs, but it is rock, perhaps a bit like BarlowGirl's "Never Alone", though the sound's quite different.

In the music video, a mother in the Victorian era bore abuse from her spouse, for she had no route of escape and her child was spared. But when the daughter learns of the father's violence from his common drunkenness, the father turns his abuse on the young girl. The mother, bereft of escape, murders her husband and is arrested. It is now that she's writing a letter to her daughter, and that's what the song is. "You won't forgive me, but I know you'll be alright." The music video is well-spliced, with skilled foreshadowing and scene choices that make it understandable even for the symbolically challenged.

Within Temptation carefully says that they are not by any stretch of the imagination condoning murder. Many who are in abusive situations tend to blame themselves for the abuse, but they need to get help, and Within Temptation strongly encourages them to call an international abuse hotline. In fact, all proceeds from the "Frozen" single will be donated to that help group. Sharon Den Adel and Robert Westerholt wrote the song after the birth of their daughter, Eva Luna, which has made them more aware of such child-related social problems.

Sharon Den Adel's voice uses the somewhat lower register than she used The Silent Force, as is common for The Heart of Everything. Her voice is strained, some complain in an unappealing way, but I disagree. This is obviously a topic that concerns Sharon, and the listener gets a sense of that.

"Frozen" isn't my absolute favorite song on the CD, but it's still a superb song well worth listening to. While I could imagine the song set to different music, the music used is still highly enjoyable (if you're not stuck in "This isn't The Silent Force!" mode).

("Frozen" and its music video are currently on Within Temptation's MySpace page. You have to scroll down for the video, or you can find it in their Videos section.)

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Lyrics: 5/5
Music: 4/5
Vocal(s): 5/5
Overall: 9/10

"Hand of Sorrow" by Within Temptation from The Heart of Everything

Within Temptation's ministories often blow me away. I've always suspected fantasy leanings in the songs, though I'm hopeless enough with symbolism that I could never be sure that songs like "Angels" and "Forsaken" weren't just metaphorical.

"Hand of Sorrow" brings the fantasy element to fore in a tale reminiscent of the old stories of nobodies with mystical powers. The story is of one such nameless orphan who swore fidelity to the crown as a child, little realizing the ruler's wickedness until too late. Now an adult, he's trapped in serving the crown's wishes even as it builds "a noble land of lies." He's further torn between his honor in the oath and the woman he loves, and he cannot have both.

Sharon Den Adel demonstrates her masterful control of her voice in "Hand of Sorrow", as she does on much of the new album The Heart of Everything. Her Dutch accent appears a bit in the lower register; noticeable, but entirely understandable. She uses the heights of her voice to accent the song, producing a song that's both rock and beautiful.

Numerous layers flow together in the song, the slow beat hastened by a second layer. Each individual element sounds like it could be separated from the song and still be thought attractive. The composite result sounds even prettier than the individual sections, bringing the old times of knights and castles to mind despite the very modern music.

"Hand of Sorrow" is one of my favorite songs that I've heard from The Heart of Everything.

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Lyrics: 5/5
Music: 5/5
Vocal(s): 5/5
Overall: 10/10

"Stand My Ground" by Within Temptation from The Silent Force

"I can see when you stay low nothing happens. Does it feel right?" asks Sharon Den Adel in "Stand My Ground".

Like all of The Silent Force, the music has a synthetic though not quite tinny quality in its orchestra. The minor key makes the rock beat more comfortable than most rock songs for people affected by it, and the multiple layers to the music flow naturally together. Sharon Den Adel sticks in her high register that is wide enough to astonish in itself, even for those who don't know how expansive her voice actually is. (How many singers can sing from alto through immensely high soprano, or control their voice enough to sound like a different person at will?)

So "Stand My Ground" is the usual accomplishment from Within Temptation, a band whose goal is to make beautiful music. The lyrics, though, are not the band's best. True, they're as clean as always. True, they as usual have a nice little story. But something about the song's story strikes me as off.

The narrator must stand her ground against a nebulous enemy that will probably kill her, but another will stand her ground in her place once she dies. I believe the problem might be all the emphasis on "I will always stand my ground". Okay, so you're standing your ground, but against what? Why? For whom? Nothing of import is hinted. The story is shortchanged from the overemphasis on the character's emotions. A balance even slightly tipped more in favor of telling the story would have produced a much stronger song.

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Lyrics: 4/5
Music: 5/5
Vocal(s): 5/5
Overall: 8/10

"The Howling" by Within Temptation from The Heart of Everything

Sometimes an artist will partner with someone else to help them publicize something. Rarely does it take a form like this. Within Temptation has recorded two songs for the in-beta MMORPG Chronicles of Spellborn. (A MMORPG is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.)

"When we start killing, it all will be falling down." The party (group of players) failed to pay attention, and that now "may cost us our lives." They've been surrounded by howling monsters that can give false illusions. "They're coming down the hills from behind." When the sun rises, very few of them are left standing. Sharon Den Adel asks if "Will we remember what we've done wrong?" to avoid another massacre. The violence element might disturb some people. That the song speaks of a fantasy situation rather than real life is clear.

Sharon Den Adel has a gorgeous voice as always, with the extraordinary control demonstrated throughout The Heart of Everything. Yes, that is her singing in the lower register, as well, though it sounds like a different person. (No, I don't merely praise this group blindly from favoritism.)

The lyrics demonstrate Within Temptation's usual poignant points. The group of players aren't just caught and slaughtered, but "The Howling" addresses the situation's implications. The fault lies with the players for their own massacre, which is the case in such a game. They are responsible to learn from the experience to avoid a repeat event after they escape "the hell that [they]'re in." (True to their non-expletive form, they use hell as an adjective.)

After the astonishing achievement in "The Truth Beneath the Rose", it's hard to evaluate this music, but it is highly memorable and layered with guitar and more. The layers meld together in Within Temptation's usual beauty, even using the drums to add to the song. "The Howling" also lasts longer than many songs with its 6 minutes; it was designed for a game trailer.

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Lyrics: 5/5
Music: 5/5
Vocal(s): 5/5
Overall: 10/10

"The Truth Beneath the Rose" by Within Temptation from The Heart of Everything

"Forgive me my sins!" may be grammatically incorrect with the strong type, but it's the best written way I know to express the plea you have to hear to fully appreciate. Some songs should be heard by anyone at least once just so they can appreciate it on any one of its artistic levels. Within Temptation's "The Truth Beneath the Rose" from The Heart of Everything is one of those.

"Pray with me, for I have lost my faith in holy wars!" pleads Sharon Den Adel as narrator of the song. Jaded by the "cruelty of the beast" within her, evidently released by the Crusades, the narrator struggles with the faith because of the violence it presumably requires. She's not giving up entirely, though; she wants the truth. "Is it a sin to seek the truth, the truth beneath the rose?" she asks in the line that provides the song with its name.

Bells put a medieval aura from the beginning of "The Truth Beneath the Rose." The rock element starts with a tone that brings marching to mind without being directly martial. This long song on The Heart of Everything provides an astonishing meld of music in its gothic rock. "The Truth Beneath the Rose" is notably longer than most songs, though, so some might not want to sit and listen to it for 7 minutes straight.

This latest CD from Within Temptation, The Heart of Everything, takes full advantage of Sharon Den Adel's variable voice. She sings beautifully, the power of the words and emotions to the song pounding through. Sharon Den Adel has admitted she thinks her good imagination helps her get into the songs, and I have to agree.

The Heart of Everything, will be released in the United States this July, providing the US its first official exposure to Within Temptation, and "The Truth Beneath the Rose" is one of the several excellent songs on that CD.

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Lyrics: 5/5
Music: 5/5
Vocalist(s): 5/5
Overall: 10/10

"What Have You Done?" by Within Temptation from The Heart of Everything

"What have you done now", Within Temptation? Will this guest addition of Keith Caputo for a second narrator in "What Have You Done" set a precedent for future songs? Will you use some of your songs to be some of what Evanescence used to be with their songs like "Tourniquet"?

If Within Temptation does decide to continue exploring such more specific dark times in peoples' relationships with both parties speaking, I won't mind. Though distinctly different than songs like "Angels" that were on The Silent Force, it's still noticeably consistent with the band. Within Temptation is growing rather than stagnating, more interested in producing good music (that happens to be gothic rock) rather than catering to fans who flock to a specific tone produced at any one point.

That sounds like Within Temptation songs all sound the same, which isn't true, but "What Have You Done?" leads the way on The Heart of Everything with Sharon Den Adel's vocal shifts and focus on her lower range better for karaoke than the soaring heights she stuck to on The Silent Force. Even listeners who pay attention can mistake Sharon Den Adel's varying voice for two different people in The Heart of Everything.

The two narrators, Sharon Den Adel and Keith Caputo accuse "What Have You Done?". The girl bemoans her lost love as she flees his drunken rages. "Would you mind if I tried to (kill) you 'cause you have turned into my worst enemy?" One point of the lyrics is a awkward in light of the general poetry of the lines ("You carry hate that I don't feel"), making me wish they'd worked on that a bit more. Nonetheless, the band is Dutch, so it's possible it might be a translation issue.

There are two versions of this song, but they are very similar. The only differences I could hear were the intro music and the bridge, but they don't change any of the song's beauty. The "Rock Remix" version merely seems to have those softer elements cut out to make it all metal. If I'm wrong, someone please correct me.

Some Within Temptation fans have complained at this single, suggesting the band has followed Evanescence's The Open Door with a heartbreaking plummet in quality. "What Have You Done?" does use a lot of cymbal in one part of "What Have You Done?", as Evanescence often used in The Open Door, but that's only a minor element of the song. Overall, it's still the multilayered beauty that caught my attention to this band to begin with. This song does use more violin than I've heard from this band before. That doesn't change its genre from the gothic rock, even if this is leaning on the rock end. It's a promising first single to be released in the U.S. this July for the internationally-popular Within Temptation.

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Lyrics: 4/5
Music: 5/5
Vocalist(s): 5/5
Overall: 9/10

"Angels" by Within Temptation from The Silent Force

"There's no escape" from the band Within Temptation once you hear them. Okay, so if you don't like minor key tonality or detest mild rock, you probably won't like them. But Sharon Den Adel's angellic voice is well worth giving a try as the narrator laments her (dark) angel who betrayed her even as she turns him in.

How many songs can you listen to 100 times—paying attention for most of them—in a week and still not be sick of it? Not many. "Angels" is one of them, as are all the songs on The Silent Force.

Though Dutch, Sharon Den Adel's accent doesn't really appear when she's in the upper elements of her supremely wide vocal range. The lyrics of "Angels" are completely clean despite the implied abuse in the song, the narrator remembering "the smile when you tore me apart." You'll likely find yourself trying to sing along to the catchy chorus with Sharon Den Adel as well as you can in your own register.

The style of music is remeniscent of the Lord of the Rings' soundtracks, especially songs like "The Bridge of Khazud-Dûm." Definitely gothic, "Angels" also has a bit of a synthetic tone that I still enjoy. It's more than just the beat of much modern rock, with multiple layers interweaving in the music.

Some people won't like the song "Angels" or the band Within Temptation in general, but often people find them pretty before they know what they're listening to. Gothic is a technical artistic term, not "please shoot me I'm so pathetic" whining, which is really emo ("emotionally-driven"). Anyway, I advise you to at least give the song a shot.

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Lyrics: 5/5
Music: 5/5
Vocal(s): 5/5
Overall: 9/10