{"id":51952,"date":"2016-05-20T07:07:01","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T12:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=51952"},"modified":"2016-05-20T07:08:15","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T12:08:15","slug":"human-fortress-thieves-of-the-night-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2016\/human-fortress-thieves-of-the-night-cd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Fortress | Thieves of the Night<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines<\/span>
\n– Sr. Columnist —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"HumanGerman Power Metal band Human Fortress is back with a new album, their fifth overall, titled Thieves of the Night<\/em>. It\u2019s the second Human Fortress album under the current lineup, which features former Adagio vocalist Gus Monsanto, and shows just how well this lineup has coalesced. <\/p>\n

If 2013\u2019s Raided Land<\/em> was a course correction for Human Fortress, then Thieves of the Night<\/em> is the band going full speed ahead. This is another tight, focused mix of the classic Power Metal sound of their early efforts and the less genre-bound Melodic Metal of bands like Masterplan. It\u2019s catchy and melodic without getting too sing-songy and has a very satisfying heaviness to it. Gus Monsanto is something of a journeyman vocalist, but hearing him on Raided Land and now Thieves of the Night makes you hope he\u2019ll stick around. His powerful voice and sheer presence on these songs is the perfect counterpoint to Todd Wolf and Volker Trost\u2019s sharp guitar work.<\/p>\n

Lyrically, Thieves of the Night<\/em> has a good blend of fantasy themes, aspirational messages, and more anthemic songs. \u201cRise or Fall\u201d and the title track being prime examples of the latter, with their marching rhythms and shout-along choruses. \u201cAmberstow\u201d and \u201cDungeons of Doom\u201d are more straight-up power metal songs, and album closer \u201cAlone\u201d works surprisingly well for a slower, not quite ballad, type song. It seems well placed at the end too, as it\u2019s the kind of song that makes you want to press play to hear the whole album again as soon as it ends.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good to see that Raided Land<\/em> was not a fluke. With Thieves of the Night<\/em>, Human Fortress has given fans one of the year\u2019s strongest power metal albums. Fans of Power Metal, Melodic Metal, or any combination of the two \u2013 especially bands like Iron Fire, Gamma Ray, Iron Savior and Masterplan \u2013 should really enjoy this one.<\/p>\n

Genre: Power Metal<\/p>\n

Lineup:
\nGus Monsanto (v)
\nDirk Liehm (k)
\nTodd Wolf (g)
\nVolker Trost (g)
\nAndre Hort (b)
\nLaki Zaios (d)<\/p>\n

Track Listing:
\n1.\tAmberstow
\n2.\tLast Prayer to the Lord
\n3.\tRise or Fall
\n4.\tThieves of the Night
\n5.\tThrice Blessed
\n6.\tHellrider
\n7.\tJust a Graze
\n8.\tVicious Circle
\n9.\tSmite on the Anvil
\n10.\tDungeons of Doom
\n11.\tGift of Prophecy
\n12.\tAlone<\/p>\n

Label: AFM Records<\/p>\n

Website: www.facebook.com\/humanfortressofficial<\/a><\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven Rating: 8.5\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines – Sr. Columnist — German Power Metal band Human Fortress is back with a new album, their fifth overall, titled Thieves of the Night. It\u2019s the second Human Fortress album under the […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":51954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13652],"tags":[8645,2317,9254,1097,9255,12338],"class_list":{"0":"post-51952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2016","8":"tag-afm-records","9":"tag-cd-review","10":"tag-human-fortress","11":"tag-power-metal","12":"tag-raided-land","13":"tag-thieves-of-the-night"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}