The Heart of Everything - Background

Background

Composing for the album started at the end of 2005, and recording came to life on half 2006. The album was released on March 9, 2007, in the Netherlands, and in the United States on July 24. Two tracks, called "The Howling" and "Sounds of Freedom", were recorded as promotion material for the video game The Chronicles of Spellborn, and the first of these opens the album. The full track listing was revealed on January 10, 2007. About their inspiration, the band cited books as well important moments of their personal lives, mainly the act of making choices. About certain songs, like Our Solemn Hour, lead vocalist Sharon den Adel as "people get sacrificed also for war and we don't learn from that." About their second single, Frozen lead vocalist den Adel said that they "wrote a song about child abuse", so they released the song as a single and gave all the profits to the Child Helpline International. In den Adel's words: "We chose this organization because they are represented in 160 countries and it is very easy to get in contact with them. You can send them an e-mail or call. They are there not only to help, but also to just listen, and you can decide how much help you want." Promotion was intense for the album and it counted with their first world tour, entitled The Heart Of Everything World Tour, in which started March 14, 2007, in Amsterdam and ended only in September 13, 2008. With this album, the band did their first U.S. tour, first supporting Lacuna Coil and them headlining their first one. Roadrunner Records also released a limited edition EP called The Howling, which was available only at Hot Topic stores, containing the title track plus popular tracks from their former album The Silent Force. About the American tour, den Adel said that "Well, we don't have any expectations because it's such a big country and you never know where people will like your music. It's totally different tastes and we're going to come over here and play and see if people will like it. You can't change if they don't. And if they do, then it's another nice country we can go and play at and enjoy the culture." The band also visited South American countries to perform for the first time, such as Brazil, Argentina and Chile for the first time. The band continued to perform at several large European festivals, like on The Silent Force Tour such as Pinkpop, Pukkelpop and Download which helped the band to reach the status of a mainstream band throughout Europe, as The Heart Of Everything appeared in several European charts. At the end of 2007, the band professionally recorded a sold out show for 8,000 visitors at the Beursgebouw, in The Netherlands, for a possible future DVD. On 7 February 2008, the band performed a special show accompanied by The Metropole Orchestra, the Pa'dam Choir, and special guests including George Oosthoek (ex-Orphanage), Anneke van Giersbergen of Agua de Annique and Keith Caputo of Life of Agony filmed by 14 HD at the Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam, with an attendance of 10.000 people. This recording was later released as the main show of the Black Symphony DVD, and some parts of the show in Eindhoven came as an extra on the second disc of some editions of the album. Both shows featured special stage effects like explosions, pyro and fireworks. This was also their first album released on North America by Roadrunner Records.