_{“Reign of Gold” is the sixth studio album from German power metal band Human Fortress and it was released on 6th December by AFM Records. The band celebrates its twentieth anniversary as Human Fortress this year, although only two of the original members remain. The track “Thunder” was included on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 20th December.}

_{Guitarists Torsten Wolf and Volker Trost initially formed a band called Timezone in 1997, but it split up and re-emerged as Human Fortress in 1999. A self-titled EP was released the following year and the debut album “Lord of Earth and Heavens Heir” was released in 2001. That album and “Defenders of the Crown” in 2003 featured original vocalist Jioti Parcharidis. He was replaced by Carsten Frank for the third album “Eternal Empire” in 2008, but returned again in 2009 only to leave for health reasons in 2010.}

_{Current vocalist Gus Monsanto joined the band in 2013; releasing the album “Raided Land” through AFM Records the same year and then “Thieves of the Night” in March 2016. A month later “Defenders of the Crown” was re-issued by Massacre Records with two bonus tracks re-recorded by Parcharidis.}

_{Drummer Apostoloa ‘Laki’ Zaios has been with the band since 2000, apart from a short break from 2007 to 2009, whilst keyboard player Dirk Liehm has been a member since 2009. Current bass player Andre Hort joined the band in 2013.}

_{Check out the band’s website at http://www.human-fortress.de/}

_{About “NI Rocks Recommends”}

_{This is purely a personal recommendation and some information about the artist and the album; not a traditional ‘review’. Most of the recommendations posted are for albums that have been sent to us digitally by the record label or promoter. Quite often I’ve also bought the album on CD or vinyl as well and sometimes I just feel the need to post a recommendation for an album that I’ve bought myself. Essentially these are albums that I like and which I’ve played some tracks from on the Shows on Rock Radio NI!}