The Unforgiving
Encyclopedia
The Unforgiving is the fifth studio album by Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 symphonic metal
Symphonic metal
Symphonic metal is a term used to describe heavy metal music that has symphonic elements; that is, elements that are either borrowed from classical music or, as with progressive rock music, create a style reminiscent of it, e.g...

/rock
Symphonic rock
Symphonic rock is a sub-genre of progressive rock. Since early in progressive rock's history, the term has been used sometimes to distinguish more classically influenced progressive rock from the more psychedelic and experimental forms of progressive rock....

 band Within Temptation
Within Temptation
Within Temptation is a Dutch symphonic gothic metal/rock band founded in 1996 by vocalist Sharon den Adel and guitarist Robert Westerholt. Their music is described as symphonic metal, although their earlier material, such as Enter, was gothic metal. In an interview, Den Adel said they fell into a...

, released by Roadrunner Records
Roadrunner Records
Roadrunner Records is an American record label that concentrates primarily on heavy metal bands. It is currently a subsidiary of Warner Music Group.-History:...

 from 25 March 2011. The album is released alongside a comic book series and a series of short films, to encompass a concept story
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...

. The first single, Faster
Faster (song)
"Faster" is the first single from Dutch symphonic metal/rock band Within Temptation's album The Unforgiving. It had its worldwide radio première on 96.3 Rock Radio on 21 January 2011 and, within two days, the song's audio clip gained almost 200,000 views on Youtube.The song's accompanying music...

, was released on 21 January the first short film, Mother Maiden, was released on January 31,, the second short film, Sinéad
Sinéad (Within Temptation song)
"Sinéad" is the second single from Within Temptation's fifth studio album, The Unforgiving, released on 15 July 2011.. Its release was announced alongside the unveiling of its artwork on 15 April 2011...

was released on 21 March and the second single with the same name was released on 15 July. The first issue of the comic books, Penance, Part One, was released on 18 March and will be digitally released by Diamond Digital at the New York Comic Con on 22 October. The second issue, Penance, Part Two was released on 13 May, Penance, Part Three on 31 August and Penance, Part Four on 2 November.

Early ideas, realisation and development

The initial concept was to write the soundtrack to a film, however the band decided to change direction given the inconsistencies and other issues which movies can undergo. As vocalist Sharon den Adel commented:
"What happened was that we wanted to write lyrics for a movie. We were searching for a good movie with a good story and everybody had different release dates. If something goes wrong, a movie can very easily be postponed for a year, and we couldn't take the chance to have to wait for that, otherwise we would have had to postpone our album as well. So we decided to take the matter in our own hands."

In searching for a new concept, they approached the writer of The Chronicles of Spellborn
The Chronicles of Spellborn
The Chronicles of Spellborn was an MMORPG, developed by Spellborn International and distributed by Frogster Interactive, Mindscape and Acclaim Games; set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world...

comics, who introduced the band to Steven O'Connell. However, upon his first meeting with the band, he failed to impress them with ideas involving zombies and fantasy, while they were hoping for a more mature approach rather than something unclear and superficial. Sharon explained that, in trying to describe to O'Connell what they were looking for,
"We told him what kind of movies we liked, what kind of books we read, and he thought about it and he came up with a basic idea, like 2 or 3 lines. The story is about people who have done bad things. Not because they are bad, but because they made bad decisions."

After the initial ideas were formed, O'Connell went on to complete the rest of the story with additional suggestions from the band. For example, Sinéad was initially "Maya", a South American woman, but, as the music to "Sinéad
Sinéad (Within Temptation song)
"Sinéad" is the second single from Within Temptation's fifth studio album, The Unforgiving, released on 15 July 2011.. Its release was announced alongside the unveiling of its artwork on 15 April 2011...

" had already been completed, Sharon requested that the name and nationality be changed.

While shooting the three short films and music videos, Mother Maiden ("Faster
Faster (song)
"Faster" is the first single from Dutch symphonic metal/rock band Within Temptation's album The Unforgiving. It had its worldwide radio première on 96.3 Rock Radio on 21 January 2011 and, within two days, the song's audio clip gained almost 200,000 views on Youtube.The song's accompanying music...

"), Sinéad
Sinéad (Within Temptation song)
"Sinéad" is the second single from Within Temptation's fifth studio album, The Unforgiving, released on 15 July 2011.. Its release was announced alongside the unveiling of its artwork on 15 April 2011...

and Triplets ("Shot in the Dark"), the band and director (Joeri Holsheimer) came up with several other ideas, including the decision as to which song would be connected to which story. The band's decision to shoot three short films was mainly to avoid the restrictions imposed on music videos, as Sharon explained:
"...we wanted to put all the money into the movies. You have a budget and then you have to make choices and, to be honest, MTV and everything, it is not so big anymore. And when you make videos, they always say "you can't use blood, you can't use guns, you can't use..." and we wanted to use everything: blood, guns... everything!"

Completed concept

The Unforgiving is a concept album based upon a simultaneously released comic book of the same name, written by Steven O'Connell (BloodRayne
BloodRayne
BloodRayne has received mostly mixed to positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the Xbox version 73.53% and 76/100, the GameCube version 68.88% and 73/100, the PlayStation 2 version 68.87% and 75/100 and the PC version 65.78% and 65/100.-External links:*...

and Dark 48) and illustrated by Romano Molenaar (Witchblade
Witchblade
Witchblade is an American comic book series published by Top Cow Productions, an imprint of Image Comics, from 1995 until present. The series was created by Top Cow editors Marc Silvestri and David Wohl, writers Brian Haberlin and Christina Z, and artist Michael Turner.The series follows Sara...

, The Darkness
The Darkness (comics)
The Darkness is a series of ongoing American comic books created by Marc Silvestri, Garth Ennis, and David Wohl and produced by Top Cow Productions. The comic first appeared in 1996 and enjoyed an initial period of relative success during the Top Cow/Image Comics boom of the late 1990s. However,...

and X-Men
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...

). The story also unfolds in three short films released prior to the album, the first of which—Mother Maiden—was released on 31 January. The characters and stories are thus portrayed in three ways—by the artists in the comic book, by the band in the music, and by the actors in the films.

Recording

The band first announced that they intended to make a new album in October 2008, as they were finishing touring in support of The Heart of Everything
The Heart of Everything
The Heart of Everything is the fourth studio album by Dutch symphonic metal/rock band Within Temptation, released by GUN Records on March 12, 2007 in Europe...

. The album was originally planned to be recorded in 2009, but was further delayed by vocalist Sharon den Adel
Sharon den Adel
Sharon Janny den Adel is a Dutch singer and composer, best known as the lead vocalist and one of the main songwriters in the Dutch symphonic metal/rock band Within Temptation...

 giving birth to her and guitarist Robert Westerholt
Robert Westerholt
Robert Westerholt is a Dutch musician, known as the guitarist, backing vocalist and co-founder of the symphonic metal band Within Temptation. He also writes music for the band, along with the band's vocalist, and his partner, Sharon den Adel...

's second child. In an interview with Metal Ways at Appelpop 2008, Westerholt stated that the new album was "probably going to be kind of a concept, but it’s so early still that nothing is really sure yet. But we’re trying to look in that direction."

The album was eventually recorded in the Summer and Autumn of 2010, with the band announcing via their website in November that the album would be entitled The Unforgiving, expected for release in March 2011. The band also announced that their planned tour dates, beginning in March 2011, had been postponed till Autumn due to den Adel's third pregnancy.

Previews and promotion

A video for 'Where Is The Edge' was released on 15 December 2010, along with footage from the upcoming film Me and Mr Jones on Natalee Island. The band also announced that the album would be released alongside a comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 series with the same name, forming a story surrounding the main protagonist, Sinéad.

On 4 December Sharon commented via their official website that they had recorded three upcoming promotional music videos within the course of a week. The band also revealed that, alongside the record and the comic book series, three short films were to be released prior to the album.

The first single, "Faster
Faster (song)
"Faster" is the first single from Dutch symphonic metal/rock band Within Temptation's album The Unforgiving. It had its worldwide radio première on 96.3 Rock Radio on 21 January 2011 and, within two days, the song's audio clip gained almost 200,000 views on Youtube.The song's accompanying music...

", had its worldwide radio première on 96.3 Rock Radio
96.3 Rock Radio
96.3 Real Radio XS is a Scottish local radio station owned and operated by GMG Radio. It is based at Ballieston to the east of Glasgow and broadcasts to Renfrewshire, West Central Scotland and Central Scotland....

 on 21 January 2011. This was followed by the release of its music video on 31 January, along with the first short film, Mother Maiden. The band also announced that each of the remaining films would also accompany a band performance. The track is currently being played in heavy rotation (at least once in each show) on UK classic rock station Planet Rock
Planet Rock
Planet Rock may refer to:* "Planet Rock" , a 1982 song by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force* Planet Rock: The Album, a 1986 album containing the song...

.

An album trailer, featuring a clip of the new song "In the Middle of the Night" was released on 17 January 2011.

On 3 February 2011, the first English review of the album was published by a freelance journalist online via last.fm and his blog.

On 7 and 8 February 2011, members of Within Temptation were in Paris to promote their new album in France. A first French interview with Sharon Den Adel was published on Metal-Ways.com (in English).

On 14 March 2011, Sony BMG organized an online-listening session of the-upcoming-album on a Polish website that only people from Poland could access. However, every song was soon after leaked onto the Internet. Within Temptation tried to prevent the leak before the release date. Limited promotion CDs were sent strictly to journalists who had to come to a listening-session.

Sinéad
Sinéad (Within Temptation song)
"Sinéad" is the second single from Within Temptation's fifth studio album, The Unforgiving, released on 15 July 2011.. Its release was announced alongside the unveiling of its artwork on 15 April 2011...

, the second short film, was released on 21 March. The accompanying music video was officially released on 10 June 2011 to promote the song's single, which would be released on 15 July. The single differs from the others, as it includes four remixes of the track by four different dance producers. The band also went to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 to promote the single on Television.

The band commenced The Unforgiving Tour
The Unforgiving Tour
-Notes:*On 24 and 25 November, Anneke van Giersbergen joined the band on the song "Fire and Ice"- Tour dates :-External links:***...

on 10 August at the Sziget Festival, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, playing a selection of songs from The Unforgiving as well as some of their more popular tracks. At the Huntenpop Festival, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, The Unforgiving was played in its entirety, as well as some older songs. Within Temptation went on to perform at several more summer festivals, such as M'era Luna and Heitere Open Air, before commencing a North American Tour and an indoor European tour in the winter.

On 22 September 2011, the band will perform "Where is The Edge" at the première of Me and Mr Jones on Natalee Island during the 31st Netherlands Film Festival
Netherlands Film Festival
The Netherlands Film Festival is an annual film festival, held in September and October of each year in the city of Utrecht.During the ten-day festival, all Dutch film productions of the previous year are exhibited. Besides feature films, the program also consists of short subjects, documentary...

, where the three The Unforgiving short-films will also be screened.

The final short film, Triplets, was released on 1 September 2011.

The Band

  • Sharon den Adel
    Sharon den Adel
    Sharon Janny den Adel is a Dutch singer and composer, best known as the lead vocalist and one of the main songwriters in the Dutch symphonic metal/rock band Within Temptation...

     – vocals
  • Robert Westerholt
    Robert Westerholt
    Robert Westerholt is a Dutch musician, known as the guitarist, backing vocalist and co-founder of the symphonic metal band Within Temptation. He also writes music for the band, along with the band's vocalist, and his partner, Sharon den Adel...

     – guitars
  • Ruud Jolie – guitars
  • Martijn Spierenburg
    Martijn Spierenburg
    Martijn Spierenburg is the keyboardist for Dutch symphonic metal band Within Temptation.Spierenburg joined Within Temptation after Martijn Westerholt, Robert Westerholt's brother was diagnosed with infectious mononucleosis shortly after the release of Within Temptation's second full-length studio...

     – keyboards
  • Jeroen van Veen
    Jeroen van Veen (bassist)
    Jeroen van Veen is the bassist in the symphonic metal band Within Temptation. Jeroen has been a member of Within Temptation since the band's inception in 1996. Although he is the bassist of the band, Jeroen can also play the drums. He also played in the Grey Foxes an Amsterdam Funk Group...

     – bass guitar
    Bass guitar
    The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....


Session musicians

  • Nicka Hellenberg – drums
  • Stefan Helleblad – additional guitars
  • Dawn Mastin – spoken words on tracks 1 and 6
  • Franck van der Heijden – choir
    Choir
    A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

     and orchestral arrangements
    Orchestra
    An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...


Reception

Reviews from critics have been mostly positive, with particular praise for Sharon's voice and the band's innovative capacity. Metal Marketing commented on its "change in pace," calling it a career "turning point," but adding that it is "one of the best albums... in a long time," giving it 9.5 out of 10. Metalholic magazine also gave it 9.5 out of 10, claiming that it was "a masterpiece, grand in scope and epic in sound and style," with no "filler tracks" and its only criticism being the drawn-out release date. UK punk, rock and metal magazine, Big Cheese, were also very positive, giving it 5 out of 5 and remarking, "Every song is glorious and frontwoman Sharon den Adel truly is the star of this spectacular show."

Metal Hammer were less favourable, giving the album a lower score of 7 out of 10, noting that fans of their former Celtic sound and "metallic symphonic thunder" may be disappointed, although praising the band for being "exceptional songwriters" and their shift in style, creating "an apt thriller soundtrack without losing their trademark symphonic elements." Classic Rock also gave it 7 out of 10, calling it "grandstanding stuff, multi-layered, complex and rich" as well as "overblown." Allmusic gave it 3.5 out of 5, stating that it "doesn't come off bombastic or overwrought" and that the band lets "the songwriting rule supreme."

Kerrang! were more negative, giving it a "good" score of just 3 out of 5 and deeming it "pretty unsatisfying," while conceding it to be "flawless and expertly crafted." Q gave it just 1 out of 5, the album's lowest rating, labelling the band "the metal T'Pau
T'Pau (band)
T'Pau was a 1980s British Rock group led by singer Carol Decker. They had a string of Top 40 hits in the UK, and several hits in the United States and Europe...

."

The album currently holds a score of 63 at the aggregate review site MetaCritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, indicating "generally favourable reviews."

Track listing

Standard track listing
DVD track listing
The special DVD edition comes with a poster featuring the names of those who promoted the "Where Is the Edge" video on their Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

 page.

The music and lyric credits were taken from booklet.

Album

Year Chart Peak
position
2011 Australian Albums Chart
ARIA Charts
The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...

27
Austrian Albums Chart
Ö3 Austria Top 40
Ö3 Austria Top 40 is the name of the official Austrian singles chart, as well as the radio show which presents it, aired Fridays on Hitradio Ö3. The show presents the Austrian singles, ringtones and downloads chart. It premiered on 26 November 1968 as Disc Parade and was presented by Ernst Grissemann...

7
Belgian Albums Chart
Ultratop
Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts...

3
Canadian Albums Chart
Canadian Albums Chart
The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS...

40
Czech Albums Chart 4
Danish Albums Chart
Tracklisten
Tracklisten is a Danish top 40 record chart that is presented every Thursday midnight at .The weekly Danish Singles Chart also known as Track Top-40 combines the 40 best selling tracks from legal music downloads and the sales of music singles on either CD or vinyl...

34
Dutch Albums Chart 2
Finnish Albums Chart 3
French Albums Chart
Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique
The Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique is the inter-professional organization which protects the interests of the French record industry...

19
German Albums Chart
Media Control Charts
The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie...

7
Greek Albums Chart
Greek Albums Chart
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry Greece or IFPI Greece is the Greek branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and is the official charts provider and recording sales certification body for Greece. Currently two charts are compiled, one for sales of...

42
Hungarian Albums Chart
Mahasz
Mahasz is the Hungarian music industry association, founded in 1992. Mahasz hands out the Hungarian Music Awards and maintains the music charts for Hungary....

39
Irish Albums Chart
Irish Albums Chart
The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically...

87
Italian Albums Chart 57
Mexican Albums Chart
Top 100 Mexico
Top 100 México is a record chart which accounts for sixty percent of the albums sold in Mexico. The chart has the support of major record distributors in Mexico and is issued by the Mexican Association of Producers of Phonograms and Videograms, A.C. since 2005 on a weekly basis...

66
Norwegian Albums Chart
VG-lista
VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by...

25
Polish Albums Chart
Polish Music Charts
The Polish Music Charts are two official album charts and seven singles charts in Poland, provided by ZPAV, the Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry . The first, the Top 100, is a monthly chart based on data received from the album companies...

6
Portuguese Albums Chart
Associação Fonográfica Portuguesa
The Associação Fonográfica Portuguesa is currently the only recording industry association in Portugal. Created in 1989, it succeeded GPPFV and UNEVA ....

3
Spanish Albums Chart 16
Swedish Albums Chart
Sverigetopplistan
Sverigetopplistan, earlier known as Topplistan and Hitlistan and other names, is since October 2007 the Swedish national record chart, based on sales data from Swedish Recording Industry Association ....

7
Swiss Albums Chart
Swiss Music Charts
The Swiss Music Charts are Switzerland's main music sales charts. The charts are a record of the highest-selling singles and albums in various genres in Switzerland.The Swiss Charts include:* Singles Top 75...

9
UK Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...

23
U.S. Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

50


Singles

Year Single Chart Position
2011 "Faster
Faster (song)
"Faster" is the first single from Dutch symphonic metal/rock band Within Temptation's album The Unforgiving. It had its worldwide radio première on 96.3 Rock Radio on 21 January 2011 and, within two days, the song's audio clip gained almost 200,000 views on Youtube.The song's accompanying music...

"
Belgium Singles Chart
Ultratop
Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts...

20
Dutch Singles Chart
Dutch Top 40
The Dutch Top 40 is a weekly music chart, which started as the "Veronica Top 40", because the offshore radio station Radio Veronica was the first to introduce it. It remained "The Veronica Top 40" until 1974, when the station was forced to stop broadcasting...

11
German Singles Chart
Media Control Charts
The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie...

39
"Sinéad
Sinéad (Within Temptation song)
"Sinéad" is the second single from Within Temptation's fifth studio album, The Unforgiving, released on 15 July 2011.. Its release was announced alongside the unveiling of its artwork on 15 April 2011...

"
Austrian Singles Chart
Ö3 Austria Top 40
Ö3 Austria Top 40 is the name of the official Austrian singles chart, as well as the radio show which presents it, aired Fridays on Hitradio Ö3. The show presents the Austrian singles, ringtones and downloads chart. It premiered on 26 November 1968 as Disc Parade and was presented by Ernst Grissemann...

37
German Singles Chart 64

Certifications

Country Certification
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...


(sales thresholds)
Poland Gold
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