WITHIN TEMPTATION are currently in the studio finalizing their long awaited fifth studio album with producer Daniel Gibson. Titled ‘The Unforgiving‘, this is the band’s first concept album and is based on a comic book story written by script writer Steven O’Connell (BloodRayne & Dark 48).

The album is set for release in March 2011, via Roadrunner Records to coincide with the band’s European tour.

Within Temptation guitarist Robert Westerholt comments, “On this album, we’ve taken a totally different approach. Each song on “The Unforgiving” was written along Steven’s narrative. The main characters of the comic are reflecting the characters of our songs. The concept pushed us and gave inspiration to come up with a new approach in our sound. It resulted in writing our best songs so far.

Renowned for their visual presentation, Within Temptation have asked Romano Molenaar (Witchblade,Darkness and X-men) to draw the characters and scenery of “The Unforgiving”.

Sharon den Adel, Within Temptation’s stunning vocalist, continues, “We have been big comic fans since our childhood. With this album we felt the time was there to take a new step in our creative development, take it further and broaden our horizon. Next to the concept form of the album, the songs are more divers than ever before. In addition, the music of the late 80ies, that’s when we started to read comic books, certainly has left a mark on our new sound”.

As a starting point for the new album, Within Temptation have re-launched their website www.within-temptation.com. The site will be the prime source for their worldwide fan base to discover clues about and the first images for ‘The Unforgiving’. The character of the new homepage is unique, having more in common with a news channel or a community than a static band website. One of the chief functions of the re-launched site is to be fully interactive with the band’s fans – they can become official reporters for their country, writing news stories in relation to Within Temptation but also about other lifestyle or entertainment topics. A very popular new section is WT TV, where the band updates their fans through filmed interviews or documentaries, such as the recent Fan Club Day footage which fans from around the world attended.

Within Temptation’s symphonic rock, crowned by the crystalline voice of Sharon Den Adel, has brought the remarkable band a decade-long international career and seen them become one of the most popular bands of their genre, selling over 3 million albums and DVDs worldwide.