"This album is the follow-up to the band's quite successful 2004 release "The Silent Force""

Follow up:

7.5/10

1. "The Howling"
2. "What Have You Done" featuring Keith Caputo
3. "Frozen" Watch the video!
4. "Our Solemn Hour"
5. "The Heart of Everything"
6. "Hand of Sorrow"
7. "The Cross"
8. "Final Destination"
9. "All I Need"
10. "The Truth Beneath the Rose"
11. "Forgiven"

This time around we have Within Temptation's latest offering "The Heart of Everything". This album is the follow-up to the band's quite successful 2004 release "The Silent Force" and it borrows some tricks from that album but as a whole, is a new listening experience.

In parts it sounds more electronic than the band has ever sounded. It got grating at times and I thought to myself more than a few times during the album "Wow, this is gonna make for some boring live shows". Excessive studio magic means they'll be playing with backing tracks alot to pull off that electronic sound live. That's not something I'm really into.

In other parts it sounds more live/acoustic/organic than they've sounded since "Mother Earth" way back in 2001. The album makes good use of a string ensemble and at times a horn section as well. A choir is present in places to add depth to Sharon's vocal tracks. Sometimes it's overdone too though. When it's done right though it's very good.

The single, "What Have You Done" is not as good as some of the other tracks on the album and I'm attributing it to the guest vocalist Keith Caputo. His presence on the track just screams commercial. It's almost as if they wrote this song with a chart in front of them describing how a radio song should sound. This is not a good thing coming from a band that I generally have alot of respect for. Although their previous albums all had their share of radio friendly songs so I don't know why I'm so shocked to hear this one.

The production is crisp and not too bottom heavy, which can happen at times with the inclusion of an orchestra in the mix. One good thing I did notice was that there were actually a few short guitar solos and more memorable riffs this time around. But the guitar tracks were not without their shortcomings. Most of the chug riffs were carbon copies of each other. The solos were present but they weren't too memorable. One guitar solo in particular was washed out by the sounds of explosions and machine guns. WT hardly ever solos and when it happens I'd like to be able to hear IT, not a bunch of sound effects.

Standout tracks are "The Heart of Everything", "The Truth Behind the Rose" and "Forgiven".

Links

Within Temptation on Myspace
Within Temptation's official website
Buy the album

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