The latest single from the new Within Temptation album "The Silent Force" is Angels, which is available as a standard and special edition. This is a review of the special DVDplus edition, which should be of more interest to fans of WT. The format of this release is dualdisc, so one side contains audio tracks and the other side is for the DVD.

Currently Angels is getting heavy airplay, so I reckon most of you are already familiar with this metal ballad. Those who have got the album are probably most interested in "Say My Name", which is a previously unreleased track. Musically it's quite good laid-back ballad, but it doesn't offer anything groundbreaking. Both the DVD and audio sides of this release contain the same three well-chosen live tracks that only differ in production and, of course, the fact that DVD contains live videos of each performance... the live videos for the DVD are combined from two different performances (one recorded in 013, Tilburg and the other in Paradiso, Amsterdam). This is rather noticeable as Sharon's outfit changes from white to black in the middle of a song.

The production on this release is slightly divaricate... the audio side sounds rather good, but the live tracks (especially "Forsaken") definitely could have sounded better. Nonetheless, the sounds on the DVD side are fortunately softer and better sounding than on the audio side of this record. The picture quality on the DVD is also good, so the DVD side is something that really makes this release appealing for the fans of this band. In case you're really picky about the production, I should point out that occasionally slight background distortion occurs on "Say My Name", but I reckon this is due to the recordings (not mastering, as one could quickly assume). In my view, Björn Engelmann has done a great job on mastering this record as the sounds are both warm and powerful.

All in all, Angels is rather good single-release from the latest studio album of Within Temptation. The material is of good quality, but there are also some aspects in which improvement could have taken place... for example, the DVD was missing a "play all" button. In addition, there could have been some comments from the band members about the tracks etc. included on the DVD. If you're wondering what the last track on the DVD (WT in Dubai) is all about, it consists of various Within Temptation footage (in a press conference and all around Dubai) - however, for some reason it doesn't contain statements from the band (instead, there's WT's music playing in the background while the speech has been faded out). Overall, I recommend "Angels" to the fans, but I also advise checking it out in case you yet haven't heard Within Temptation's albums but have become interested in their music.

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- MAGE (July 8th, 2005)

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LINE-UP:
den Adel, Sharon: Vocals Westerholt, Robert: Guitars Spierenburg, Martijn: Keyboards van Veen, Jeroen: Bass Jolie, Ruud: Guitars van Haestregt, Stephen: Drums with Ego Works Session Orchestra
Producer:	Gibson, Daniel
Mixing by:	Glaumann, Stefan (Angels); WT/Within Temptation (Live Tracks) & Spierenburg, Martijn (Say My Name)
Mastering by:	Engelmann, Björn

	TRACKLIST:
	Audio Side 01. Angels - Full Length Version 02. Say My Name - Unreleased Bonustrack 03. Forsaken - Live in 013, Tilburg 04. The Promise - Live in 013, Tilburg 05. Angels - Live in 013, Tilburg Length: 25:16 DVD Side 01. The Promise (Live) [8:00] 02. Angels - (Live) [4:09] 03. Forsaken - (Live) [4:53] 04. Angels - Video Clip [4:09] 05. Within Temptation in Dubai [5:44] Length: 26:55 Total Length: 52:11