The Hydra, a mythological serpent creature from ancient Greece, couldn’t be killed. When one of its many heads was cut off, two more grew in its place...
“It’s like us – undefinable!” laughs WITHIN TEMPTATION guitarist and songwriter Robert Westerholt. “What’s more, ‘Hydra’ is a perfect title for our new album, because like the monster itself, the record represents the many different sides of our music.”
WITHIN TEMPTATION’s sixth studio album, special guest performances on Hydra include: Finnish operatic metal diva Tarja Turunen, acclaimed singer-songwriter Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum, metalcore hero Howard Jones formerly of Killswitch Engage and U.S. hip-hop icon and actor Xzibit (Alvin Nathaniel Joiner).
Asked to describe Xzibit’s performance on the song “And We Run,” WITHIN TEMPTATION’s Westerholt laughs. “Xzibit is amazing. This song is about how you’ve got to live your life now. He’s rapping at full force on this song. It’s really heavy."
Lead vocalist Sharon den Adel adds: “Xzibit brings a new element to our music that we’ve never had before! It's a new cross-over and we love it!”
As for the mighty performance by Tarja Turunen, Sharon declares: “The way she delivers those high melody lines left us all speechless. We had a great time, and the fans responded beyond our expectations.”
One of the album heaviest tracks, “Dangerous” was recorded with the former Killswitch Engage singer Howard Jones, whose epic vocals are a perfect fit for Sharon’s. “I always loved Howard’s voice,” she confesses. “He makes the song even heavier than it already is. That song is one of my favorite songs on the record and one of the fastest we’ve ever written. It has the most bass drums we’ve ever used, too, and a very fast riff which we doubled with synths. It’s not a typical synthesizer, though – it’s distorted like a guitar, and it’s very aggressive.”
Hydra goes from strength to strength with “Whole World Is Watching,” featuring Soul Asylum’s golden-voiced singer Dave Pirner. “When we wrote ‘Whole World Is Watching,’ Dave was at the very top of our list. He has such a captivating voice: it made the song exactly how it needed to be."
The track listing for Hydra is:
01 – Let Us Burn
02 – Dangerous featuring Howard Jones
03 – And We Run featuring Xzibit
04 – Paradise (What About Us?) featuring Tarja
05 – Edge Of The World
06 – Silver Moonlight
07 – Covered By Roses
08 – Dog Days
09 – Tell Me Why
10 – Whole World Is Watching featuring Dave Pirner
Hydra features neoclassical artwork by concept artist Romano Molenaar (X-Men, Batman), who also worked with WITHIN TEMPTATION on the artwork for 2011’s The Unforgiving, which debuted in the U.S. at #50 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart.
The album will be released in the U.S. by Nuclear Blast Entertainment in early 2014 in the following formats (North American pre-order links will be announced soon):
• Limited Deluxe Box Set (LP-sized box, 2 CD/18-tracks + bonus tracks, digi-book with foil print cover, 100 page booklet, double gatefold black vinyl LP, instrumental version of the album, collector’s guitar pick, song book + sheet music)
• Digital Premium Album – exclusive iTunes edition (18 tracks with digi-booklet, audio commentary, and Paradise [What About Us?] music video)
• Special Edition 2-CD
• Double-vinyl LP
• Jewel-case CD
Add to the over one million-and-a-half views by watching the video for the album single “Paradise (What About Us?)” here: http://vevo.ly/swfAf7
The 4-track Paradise (What About Us?) EP is available at iTunes at http://smarturl.it/WT-Paradise-iTunes and Amazon.com/MP3 (http://smarturl.it/WT-Paradise-AMZ-MP3)
The first leg of WITHIN TEMPTATION’s world tour will launch at Cable Factory in Helsinki, Finland on February 26th, 2014. Dates are available on the band’s official Facebook page.
ABOUT WITHIN TEMPTATION:
Masters of elegance, melodrama, and symphonic grandeur, WITHIN TEMPTATION are not just one of
