The Heart of Everything
Untitled | |
---|---|
The Heart of Everything is the fourth studio album by Dutch rock band Within Temptation, released by Roadrunner Records on March 12, 2007 in Europe. It was released in North America on July 24, 2007.
Title
Pretty much, the basic theme of the album is: What do you find important in life? What do you put at the center of your life as an individual? That is the main thing that we mean by the title, The Heart of Everything – what do you find important in your life? – because we have to make many choices in life about different things. On this album we talk about religion in a way, and also about sacrifice...every song is inspired by certain important choices that people have made in life.[5]
So often, we live our life without thinking. We just do things because we're born in a certain environment and people are expecting certain things from you. Sometimes its important to look within yourself and discover what really makes you happy and what's important to you.[6]
Songs
We pushed ourselves to make these songs the best that we could. We wanted to have a more organic feeling and more energy than ever. I think our last one, [2004's The Silent Force], went a bit too far in one direction; at times the orchestra pushed away the drums and guitars. This time we tried to get the guitars more prominent and have more riffs. It still has a big feeling and there's still plenty of classical parts, but I think we did it without losing the power of the band.[6]
- Robert Westerholt
Our biggest goal besides writing the best songs we can was to give this record more energy than the last one. I used my voice in a different way on every song. Sometimes it's high and melodic, almost classical, and in some songs it's lower with power. [6]
We made very careful choices when we were writing these songs. We didn't use orchestra everywhere and we also cut down a bit in the layering of the arrangements so they were more efficient and had less choruses so they could work better together with the band. [6]
- Westerholt.
- "The Howling" was written as a promotional song for The Chronicles of Spellborn, along with "Sounds of Freedom". "The Howling" was used in an online trailer for the game.[7] It is about the Howlers[1], creatures in Spellborn universe. It was also released in the United Kingdom on June 11. The video for the single features a duality concept, with den Adel in an old country house in bright nature surroundings with a young child, and the band performing in a dark, ruined wasteland.[8]
The Howling was the very first song of The Heart of Everything performed on stage during Huntenpop, 12th of august, 2006 and on the M'era Luna festival one day later.
- "What Have You Done" was the first single for the album, and was released in January 2007. Lead singer den Adel was joined by singer Keith Caputo from American hard rock band Life of Agony. The video for "What Have You Done" can be viewed on their myspace page and on Youtube.[9]
- The song "Our Solemn Hour" features samples from Winston Churchill's "Be Ye Men of Valour" speech.
In an interview with Live-Metal, Sharon talked about the meaning of the song.[10]
It's like a cry out, the holy spirit. And the song is about the fact that we haven't learned from war. It sounds like [that] because it's [Winston] Churchill talking [about] the second World War, of course, but we don't want to refer to the second World War exactly, but more the feeling of war and how propaganda works. A lot of times when you look back on history a lot of times it was propaganda, but a lot of times you see it as truth because it's somebody policing—sort of powers and stuff. But we haven't learned from that. We haven't learned from following people's lives. So people get sacrificed also for war and we don't learn from that. Here we are again in Iraq. A lot of things happen and again still a lot of stories are told that were not totally true and it's terrible. I think that's the feeling of a lot of people, so we just wrote a song about it.
- "The Heart of Everything" was written by Sharon den Adel and Robert Westerholt after watching Braveheart.[6]
- "Hand of Sorrow", according to den Adel, is about the fact that sometimes you sacrifice your own dreams for a higher goal in life, something that is bigger than yourself or a main goal for more people, instead of living your own life.[5] The lyrics are inspired by the book Royal Assassin from the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb.
- "The Cross" was written about all the hardships that the band-members have faced.[6]
That song in particular became very special to me. I love the song, it’s one of my favorites. It almost did not make the album because I wrote it together with Martijn in a different tempo but it was too quick, you couldn’t really play guitar to it. So, I wanted it to be really heavy, slow, dramatic, and really an angry kind of song, but it didn’t work out. It took me a year to get the right rhythm and right atmosphere and it finally made it to the album in the last few weeks of the recording. So, I finally got to say “Yay!”.
- "The Truth Beneath the Rose", was inspired by aspects of The Da Vinci Code. "[It] is about the idea that belief is sometimes used to justify sins. On the other hand, it may be more important with belief that it's your own belief and you can stand behind it instead of following the belief other people may want to put upon you."[6]
- "Forgiven" was written about the strength of unconditional love.[6], the status as a single was revealed in July 2008 to promote the upcoming DVD Black Symphony.
- "All I Need" is the 3rd single, according to the band's website. den Adel says:
I think lyric-wise this song is something that a lot of people can relate to. It's about the fact that [everybody], you know, everybody gets this point in life...And that is what the song is about, that you're trying to hold on to the things that are important, that you try to find something that you can believe in and which is worth living, if it's family or the love of your life or (laugh) things that make your life worth [living]. And this person in the song is really disappointed [with a lot of things], because a lot of people are fake or things don't turn out the way she had hoped they would do. And this is what the song is about and I think it's something that a lot of people can relate to.
Track listing
Standard edition
This is the track listing for the standard edition of The Heart of Everything.[12]
Title | Writers | Length | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "The Howling" | Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson | 5:36 |
2 | "What Have You Done" featuring Keith Caputo | Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson | 5:13 |
3 | "Frozen" | Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson | 4:28 |
4 | "Our Solemn Hour" | Den Adel, Westerholt, Spierenburg | 4:17 |
5 | "The Heart of Everything" | Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson, Kooreneef | 5:35 |
6 | "Hand of Sorrow" | Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef | 5:36 |
7 | "The Cross" | Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef | 4:52 |
8 | "Final Destination" | Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson | 4:45 |
9 | "All I Need" | Den Adel, Westerholt | 4:52 |
10 | "The Truth Beneath the Rose" | Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef | 7:05 |
11 | "Forgiven" | Den Adel, Westerholt, Spierenburg | 4:54 |
Additional tracks
Title | Writers | Length | Editions |
---|---|---|---|
"What Have You Done" featuring Keith Caputo (U.S single edit) | Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson | 3:24 | Track #2 in the U.S. edition, the original version is called "extended version" and put at #13.[13][14] |
"Stand My Ground" | Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef | 4:28 | Track #10 in the U.S. edition, between "All I Need" and "The Truth Beneath the Rose".[13][14] Originally released on The Silent Force. |
"What Have You Done" (rock mix) | Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson | 3:53 | Track #12 in the yellow and pink special editions, as well as the digipak version |
"What Have You Done" (acoustic) | Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson | 4:12 | Track #13 in the yellow and pink special editions. |
"Ice Queen" (acoustic) | Den Adel, Westerholt | 4:31 | Track #14 in the yellow and pink special editions. Originally released on Mother Earth, but this is an acoustic version. |
"Stand My Ground" (acoustic) | Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef | 3:43 | Track #15 in the yellow and pink special editions. Originally released on The Silent Force, but this is an acoustic version. |
"What Have You Done" (European mainstream mix) | Den Adel, Westerholt, Gibson | 4:01 | Track #16 in the pink special edition. |
"Memories" (live) | Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef | 3:54 | Track #12 in the European iTunes Store edition. Originally released on The Silent Force, but this is a live version. |
"Angels" (live) | Den Adel, Westerholt, Spierenburg | 4:04 | Track #13 in the European iTunes Store edition. Originally released on The Silent Force, but this is a live version. |
"Stand My Ground" (live) | Den Adel, Westerholt, Kooreneef | 4:29 | Track #14 in the European iTunes Store edition. Originally released on The Silent Force, but this is a live version. |
Yellow Special Edition DVD
The yellow special edition includes a DVD with the following video tracks:
- "Our Solemn Hour" (live in Tokyo)
- "The Howling" (live in Tokyo)
- "Frozen" (live in Tokyo)
- "Stand My Ground" (live in Tokyo)
- "The Cross" (live in Tokyo)
- "The Heart of Everything" (live in Tokyo)
- "Mother Earth" (live in Tokyo)
- "Deceiver of Fools" (live in Tokyo)
- "Ice Queen" (live in Tokyo)
- "The Howling" (game trailer for The Chronicles of Spellborn)
- "What Have You Done" featuring Keith Caputo (video)
- "Frozen" (video)
- "The Howling" (video)
- "What Have You Done" featuring Keith Caputo (U.S. version video)
B-sides
- "Blue Eyes"
- "Sounds of Freedom"
- "The Last Time" (Demo)
Some more demos were released, these are arguably b-sides as they have extreme differences, lyrically and musically (and often named differently) to the originals.
- "Hand of Sorrow" (Demo)
- "Frozen" (Demo)
- "Our Solemn Hour" (Demo)
Certifications and peak positions
The Heart of Everything debuted at number one in the Netherlands, a first for the band. Across the rest of Europe, the album performed well, reaching the top ten in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. It sold 50,000 copies in its first week.
Worldwide sales: 2.4 million+
Chart | Provider(s) | Peak position |
Certification | Sales/ shipments |
---|---|---|---|---|
Austria Album Chart[15] | Media Control | 12 | ||
Australia Album Chart[16] | ARIA | 88 | ||
Belgium Album Chart[17] | Ultratop/IFPI | 1 | Platinum | |
Billboard 200 (U.S.)[18] | Billboard | 99 | +16.000[19] | |
Billboard Top Heatseekers (U.S.) | 1 | |||
Czech Album Chart[20] | IFPI | 12 | ||
Denmark Album Chart[21] | IFPI | 32 | ||
Europe Album Chart[22] | IFPI | 5 | Gold | |
Finland Album Chart[15] | GLF | 1 | Platinum | |
France Album Chart [23] | SNEP/IFOP | 26 | ||
Germany Album Chart[24] | Media Control | 4 | Platinum | |
Greek International Album Chart[25] | IFPI | 18 | Gold | |
Italy Album Chart[26] | FIMI | 48 | ||
Japan Album Chart[27] | Oricon | 5 | Gold | +7.500[27] |
Netherlands Album Chart[28] | NPVI/GFK Megacharts BV | 1 | Platinum | 470,000 |
Norway Album Chart[29] | GLF | 7 | ||
Spain Album Chart[30] | Promusicae | 6 | ||
Sweden Album Chart[15] | GLF | 3 | Platinum | |
Switzerland Album Chart[15] | Media Control | 8 | ||
Portugal Album Chart[31] | AFP | 5 | Platinum | |
UK Album Chart[32] | BPI/The Official UK Charts Company | 30 | ||
Worldwide | Platinum, Gold | 3.400.000 |
Singles
Five singles have been released from the album:
- "What Have You Done" (four different versions), released in February 2007.
- "The Howling" (both as an EP, released in the US on May 1, 2007, and as a co-release with the Frozen single.)
- "Frozen" (standard and maxi versions), released on June 11, 2007.
- "All I Need" (standard and maxi versions), released on November 12, 2007.
- "Forgiven" (radio edit) was revealed in July 2008 to promote the upcoming Black Symphony.
References
- ^ All release dates
- ^ Kerrang (Magazine) (p.48) - "[They] built their sweeping, symphonic rock to a pinnacle that was pretty close to magnificent."
- ^ http://www.musicmight.com/artist/netherlands/utrecht/within+temptation
- ^ http://www.lordsofmetal.nl/showreview.php?id=9370&lang=en
- ^ a b Within Temptation Invades America interview
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Westerholt and Den Adel discuss new album". Retrieved 2007-07-10.
- ^ YouTube - Within Temptation - The Howling
- ^ YouTube - Within Temptation: The Howling
- ^ YouTube - Within Temptation - What Have You Done (feat. Keith Caputo)
- ^ "Live-Metal.net -Interviews-Within Temptation-Sharon Den Adel". Retrieved 2007-05-13.
- ^ FYE: Within Temptation II
- ^ "Roadrunner Records UK".
- ^ a b "Roadrunner Records". Retrieved 2007-01-11.
- ^ a b Within Temptation Website
- ^ a b c d Charts for Switzerland, Finland, Sweden and Austria
- ^ Australia Chart and Chart facts
- ^ Belgium Chart
- ^ America Chart
- ^ US sales
- ^ Czech Chart
- ^ Denmark Chart
- ^ Europe Chart
- ^ French Chart
- ^ German Chart
- ^ Greek Chart
- ^ Italy Chart
- ^ a b Japan Chart
- ^ Netherlands Chart
- ^ Norway Chart
- ^ Spain Chart
- ^ Portugal Chart
- ^ UK Chart