Within Temptation - The Unforgiving

01. Why Not Me
02. Shot in the Dark
03. In the Middle of the Night
04. Faster
05. Fire and Ice
06. Iron
07. Where Is the Edge
08. Sinéad
09. Lost
10. Murder
11. A Demon's Fate
12. Stairway to the Skies

Four years after their last originals release, Dutch symphonic hard rockers Within Temptation are back with their new album “The Unforgiving”. Much has happened in these years: their long-serving drummer has left the band (not before helping them release two new live albums), they penned a couple of songs for a video game and Sharon den Adel and Robert Westerholt (vocals and guitar, respectively) still found time to get all broody by having not one, but two more children together.

With all this convolution I must admit I did not foresee anything good coming out of this new album, especially because their releases had been on a descent as of late: “The Heart of Everything” had a couple of really good songs but the general mid-pace feel of the album always caused me to phase out when listening to it. As for “The Black Symphony”, while I appreciated the full symphony live arrangements, I could never get over Sharon's voice being so broken and tired (apparently she was ill) as to enjoy it much.

This makes “The Unforgiving”, the band's first concept album, a surprising disc all the more. This may be a good or bad thing depending of where you're coming from and how much of a Within Temptation purist you are. What we have here is an extremely energetic album that differs quite a bit from their previous releases and begs for your attention. While it still sounds like the band, on a lot of songs I get vibes from Heart, To/Die/For or even (gasp) Roxette and ABBA. Songs are generally quite upbeat and radio-friendly, to the point of being danceable like “Shot in the Dark” and the (decidedly disco-laced) “Sinéad”. The choruses tend to be grandiose in sound and catchy in melody to the point of getting etched into your humming memory after a single listen.

This is not to say that this is a wimpy album: there is still plenty of guitar and even solos and the drumming makes this decidedly rock (check out track 6, “Iron”). Furthermore Sharon's voice is at her absolutely most powerful on this record! In previous albums she always seemed to deliver a slightly meek and frail voice, going into falsetto for the higher tones as heard on “Jillian (I'd Give My Heart)“ in “The Silent Force” album. I honestly did not think she could deliver a chorus like “Faster”, but she does it here with room to spare. Nice one.

But you do get a trade-off here, no two ways about it: those looking for that syncopated, more artsy, slow Gothic of earlier album will be disappointed. I, on the other hand, welcome the change and think this is an absolutely great album, chock-a-block full of great songs and quite possibly their best yet. Highly recommended.

[EDIT] It is worth mentioning that if you're a collector you may want to go for the special edition. The CD itself features the same songs as the standard issue but you get a DVD with 4 videoclips and a few short films (wooden acting alert!) that introduce some of the songs and help you better understand the concept behind the album. You also get a nice graphic novel based on the story but, since it's only issue #1, you sadly don't get to gleam much of what the hell is going on.