WITHIN TEMPTATION // Should We Fear The Future?

Lucky number seven; Within Temptation’s brand new album, Resist, is so far removed from anything the Dutch symphonic metal outfit have done before, it’s not surprising the story behind its eclectic composition and the inspirations behind its ideals would be a little more out there.

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“We were very much inspired by the digital age,” says vocalist Sharon den Adel bluntly.

Reaching into the future of their imaginations based on the materials in the now, Resist puts a spotlight on all the things that are changing in our ever-technologically-dependent world, more specifically, how the world once saw the beauty in technology but more and more each day, realise a fear in it. “We don’t know who’s on the other end of the computer,” den Adel says. “Is it the government or is it the company? And is the company getting more power to change things and also to do things?

“Those kinds of things were a huge inspiration for writing this album and so, it was something that we [had] never done before. It’s a pretty political album in a way. Certain songs by us are about politics, but we were never up front about it, not that clear about it because we were talking a lot in metaphors.

“It’s such a strange world we’re living in now, we wanted to do a different approach, [a] more direct way of lyrics. I think that also, it’s not only the songs but the visuals, the feeling of the songs and the music, the production and [the] inspirational source.”

This is definitely a no holds kind of album, an unabashed truth obvious as you course through tracks like Mad World, Endless War, and The Reckoning, the latter a single of uniformity recorded with Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shadix. He, of course, comes from a band whose beginnings were steeped in notions of rebellion, and the addition of his vocals to Resist with its own kind of rebellion and beautiful sound, makes for a wonderfully provocative track.

There’s a certain danger that people don’t really see and I think people are starting to get it now.
[ Sharon den Adel ]

When Within Temptation sat down to write this album, they were very much determined, it seems, to veer away from that goth rock moniker they were given when they first began–this of course goes to show not only the ingenuity of the band but their growth, as well. “Before we first started writing for this album, we really had a writer’s block,” admits den Adel, “Because we didn’t feel like we were stretching the bar as far as it could go.

“We’ve tried to change with every album more or less, not one album is really the same or at least for us—but maybe for someone who doesn’t know the scene maybe all that much, or us all that much. Like everything in my scene all sounds the same.

“You also grow as a person and it’s different every time—you look at the world it changes constantly. There’s a certain danger that people don’t really see and I think people are starting to get it now.”

Without her own investigation into what she calls the bigger picture, den Adel’s outlook on the world around her holds much caution. “I have to put in a certain kind of effort to get a bigger picture of the world from the left side and the right side from all over the world,” she says. “I think we need to see both [sides] to make up our own minds and it worries us a little bit. So, that was another of the main inspirations for the album.

Resist is the start of a new chapter for Within Temptation, scheduling in a new era—but moving forward, any further change to their material depends greatly, den Adel, on what happens in the world. “The most important thing for us is that we can change musically and mostly, still have something to say, to have some kind of fire inside of you that you want to share. I think it’s a nice way and music is a perfect way to do it, you know? It’s the perfect way to express yourself.”

Pre-order Within Temptation’s Resist here.