Band:	Human Fortress
Album:	Raided Land
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	November 22, 2013
A review by:	R Lewis

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



Human Fortress play classic power metal.

If the first sentence hasn't brought you to close this review, welcome aboard. And, I would say, congratulations for your trust, since Human Fortress, though playing power metal, are far from being another copycat of the famous bands of the genre, having developed and shaped throughout the years their very own conception of power metal.

The band, in fact, before becoming what now appears to us, used to play hard rock under the name of Timezone. And this is a feature that's clearly appreciable in all their releases, and Raided Land is no exception.

Human Fortress return after five years of silence with a renewed line-up and the intent to enliven the flame of their early and successful albums, taking a step back to their dawning, concerning the style. This brings to the fact that Raided Land mainly has the sound of a power metal release, but lacks the features that have made this genre so loathed. Guitars, in fact, have no fear in being heavy and relevant, instead of sounding thin as raindrops bouncing on a steel plate just for the sake of achieving a shrill and "nordic" sound, drums don't measure their quality in beats per minute, and the singer (newcomer ex-Adagio and Revolution Renaissance's Gus Monsanto) doesn't feel the urge to break crystal chalices with useless high-pitched notes.

However, an inappropriate song placement brings to the fact that approaching this album with the typical genre specialist's multi-year experience can be dangerous, as it leads them to expect the album opener to be the best, maybe alongside with the closer. The strongest part of Raided Land is, in fact, in its core, with the medieval semi-ballad "Wasted Years", the power metal fun "Gladiator Of Rome (Part 2)" (where Monsanto could have dared to strain his voice a little more), the heavy and mid-paced "Dark Knight" and the epic and melodic "Pray For Salvation".

Raided Land is an album that is undeniably full of ideas, some of which could have been pushed a little more, and with the exclusion of a few fillers, such as the avoidable "Shelter" or "Guard The Blind," it would have been fighting among the best power metal albums of the year. But this is still a solid and epic release, willing to satisfy every genre die-hard and also some genre foreigners.

Human Fortress incorporates the best of both power metal and hard rock: it's armors and jackets, castle stakes and beach bonfires. Who can say that the leaders of a hoped power metal rebirth won't be bands such as this...