Fortress is the second studio album by Canadian band Protest the Hero which was released on January 29, 2008 on Vagrant Records in the US and Underground Operations in Canada. Fortress debuted at #95 on the US Billboard Top 200 chart with first week sales of 7,600 copies, also managing #10 spot on the Billboard Top Independent Album chart. In Canada, the album achieved #1 status the first week of its release. Mike Portnoy named this album one of his favourite albums of 2008 on his official web page. Fortress, like its predecessor Kezia, achieved universal acclaim with high regards from many major publications, receiving a comprehensive score of 86 on Metacritic making it the 12th best reviewed album on the site for 2008. Tyler Patrick Munro of SputnikMusic states: "The album improves on everything established on Kezia (right down to the much more natural sounding piano codas), and it does so without the sometimes blatant repetition of its predecessor." He cites the track "Bone Marrow," stating: "While 'Bone Marrow' places more emphasis on the underpinning synths of the first two tracks, its heavy orchestration still takes a backseat to its varying structure, which fluidly transits from hyper-melodic up-tempo to ball-crushing gutturals and chugged syncopation, all of which are made twice as effective by the interwoven bass slapping," and compares the style of the opener "Bloodmeat" to the dissonance of The Dillinger Escape Plan and Converge. John A. Hanson, also reviewing f