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 Robert. “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 collaborated with several special guests on ‘Hydra’: Tarja Turunen, Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum and metalcore hero Howard Jones, formerly of Killswitch Engage as well as US hip-hop icon Xzibit.
Robert: “Xzibit is amazing. ‘And We Run’ 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.” Sharon 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 Tarja, Sharon recalls: “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’s 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 says. “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 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.“