01.Raided Land
02.Child Of War
03.Wasted Years
04.The Chosen One
05.Shelter
06.Gladiator Of Rome (Part 2)
07.Dark Knight
08.Prelude
09.Pray For Salvation
10.Evil Curse
11.Restless Souls
12.Under Siege
13.Guard The Blind
Gus Monsanto (Vocals)
Todd Wolf (Guitar)
Volker Trost (Guitar)
Andre Hort (Bass)
Dirk Liehm (Keyboards)
Apostolos Zaios (Drums)
The beginnings of HUMAN FORTRESS reach back to 1997, when the Hard Rock band “Timezone” was founded in the Hanover area, which later should change their style towards Melodic Metal and rename to HUMAN FORTRESS. After a first demo, which was very well received in the underground, several contract offers came up so the band signed with Limb Music. The debut album “Lord Of Earth And Heavens Heir” was released to critical acclaim in 2001, followed by “Defenders Of The Crown” two years later. With several line-up changes (most significantly ex-Galloglass vocalist Carsten Frank replacing Jioti Parcharidis), the band’s third album “Eternal Empire” was released in 2008. Despite the album’s qualities, the down-tuned guitars, more modern overall approach of the material and the shouting of Frank were a departure from the epic melodic sound that HUMAN FORTRESS were known for. Shortly after the release of “Eternal Empire”, the band split. But at the end of 2008, original members Wolf, Trost, Parcharidis and Zaios started planning to resurrect HUMAN FORTRESS. In 2009 Jioti Parcharidis left the band again for medical reasons. It took a while to get together a stable line-up again, which was found by the addition of Dirk Liehm (keyboards), Andre Hort (bass) and Brazilian master vocalist Gus Monsanto (ex-Timo Tolkki’s Revolution Renaissance, Adagio).
And here we go again another slab of generic euro power metal, not the usual high speed guitar-fest but the melodic stuff with orchestration and "nice" keyboards.
If thats yur bag then this is pretty good stuff, well executed, ticking all the boxes as it goes along, if on the other hand you want something that stands out and that trys to push the genre further, then give this one a miss.
Rating 5/10
For Fans Of : Kamelot and all the other bands that sound like this!
