Within Temptation released The Silent Force in Europe on November 15, 2004, through GUN/BMG. Their third studio album expanded the orchestral side of their music with a real orchestra, working alongside producer Daniel Gibson. “Stand My Ground” introduced the record as its first single.
The success of Mother Earth had given the Dutch band an audience beyond their home country and the opportunity to make a more ambitious follow-up. It also created pressure. In a 2014 Metal Hammer interview, singer Sharon den Adel recalled that they hadn't expected music to become their profession and were determined to avoid repeating their previous album.
Writing became an exhausting routine. Den Adel remembered spending roughly four or five months working 12-hour days, six days a week, in a basement studio, with meals eaten there and little daylight. She connected those conditions to the album's darker mood. Gibson, producing Within Temptation for the first time, encouraged them to leave the studio for lunch and get outside.
Their musical ambitions reached well beyond that room. Den Adel told Metal Hammer in 2021 that the film scores for Gladiator and Braveheart helped inspire the orchestral direction. Mother Earth had used computerized orchestral sounds; the larger budget for its successor allowed a real orchestra. Coordinating the sessions meant sending files between the band's recording base near Rotterdam and musicians in Moscow. Slow transfers, computer crashes and requests for revisions made the process laborious. Writing and recording overlapped, and the arrangements continued changing. “The orchestra came later, and we kept adjusting things,” she recalled.
There was another influence alongside those film scores. In the 2014 interview, den Adel credited Linkin Park's use of samples and loops with encouraging Within Temptation to explore electronic production. Their interest in orchestration coexisted with an interest in how other heavy bands were building records. Keyboardist Martijn Spierenburg also had a substantial writing role: his contributions included “See Who I Am” and “Jillian (I'd Give My Heart),” and he shared composition credits with den Adel on “Angels” and “Memories.”
The album's title came from a novel by Dutch writer Louis Couperus. Den Adel explained its relevance in terms of forces that affect people's choices and the consequences of their actions. The songs also drew on experiences much closer to the band's working life.
“Angels” grew out of their frustrations with former label DSFA Records. In Metal Hammer's account of the song, den Adel described discovering that people they had trusted weren't trustworthy. She also acknowledged how unprepared the band had been for contracts and the business surrounding an unexpectedly successful recording career. The song's betrayal had a specific source. After “Stand My Ground” and “Memories,” the response to “Angels” at concerts helped persuade the band to make it the album's third single.
The Silent Force debuted at No. 1 in the Netherlands. By November 2005, it had earned a Dutch platinum award for sales exceeding 80,000 copies, as Blabbermouth reported at the time.
