Review – Within Temptation – The Unforgiving

Within Temptation’s latest studio offering, fifth album The Unforgiving, sees them return to the metal scene with their usual brand of melodramatic, grandiose, female fronted power metal. Built around a short story, encompassed and due to be brought to life by a related comic book series and short film, The Unforgiving is everything you would want and indeed expect from a Within Temptation record.

It is epic, and Sharon Den Adel’s voice soars across the songs, built around driving riffs, symphonic accompaniment, and powerful lyrics, sounding huge in the process.

Spoken word intro Why Not Me sets the dramatic and haunting tone to what follows, and Shot In The Dark bursts into life, sounding like Within Temptation at their anthemic and enthralling best. It quickly becomes not only one of the standout tracks on this release, but of their entire career. In The Middle Of The Night quickly follows suit, and is another scintillating take on the power metal formula. It is another highlight, in an album of many, and along with the likes of Iron, Sinead, and A Demon’s Fate, this record is one not to miss.

Within Temptation do mix it up a little on here, mixing some slower and more methodical tracks allowing Sharon to use her vocal abilities to full use, and she sounds as impressive as ever on the songs. It has been constructed well, in that the slower songs do not take away any of the momentum built by the faster, more dynamically driving rock numbers, and as a collection, this is a great body of work by the Dutch symphonic metallers.

These tracks are a great addition to their already sterling back catalogue, and by the time they return to our shores in November of this year, they will have plenty of killer hits to throw out. Sharon’s voice is on top form at the moment, as are the technical abilities of her bandmates, and this is most definitely worth a listen.

8.5/10