Stronghold is the seventh album from Germany's Human Fortress, a band that's been around for over 25 years, something you can hear in their spot-on performances. If you want gritty vocals, intertwining guitars and layered keys, you'll find no shortage here. The tempos are generally mid-paced, so there is a dearth of double-kick drumming, but that on its own doesn't sink the album. What does is the utterly bland songwriting, something that has plagued this band over their last several releases. I've rarely heard such a vast collection of lifeless vocal lines and neutered riffs without a single hook to be found. Stronghold is by no means awful, these guys have too much experience to put out anything actively bad, but power metal is supposed to lift your spirits, and all this album does is put me to sleep. Human Fortress can (and has) done better than this, but until they start doing that again, you can skip just about everything they've released in the past 20 years, starting with Stronghold.