Stronghold is the fourth full length album by Summoning

Summoning (band)

Summoning is an Austrian black metal band. They are known in part due to their extensive use of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth mythology as lyrical subject.-Biography:...

. This album marked a change in the sound of Summoning as it was much more "guitar orientated with more compact keyboard-melodies". "Where Hope and Daylight Die" features Tania Borsky, Protector's ex-girlfriend and a former member of Die Verbannten Kinder Evas

Die Verbannten Kinder Evas

Die Verbannten Kinder Evas is an Austrian music project signed to Napalm Records, which was founded in 1993 by Richard Lederer and Michael Gregor.- Biography :...

, on lead vocals.

This album is the first by Summoning to feature audio-clips; the clips used on this album were from the movies Braveheart

Braveheart

Braveheart is a 1995 epic historical drama war film directed by and starring Mel Gibson. The film was written for the screen and then novelized by Randall Wallace...

and Legend

Legend (film)

Legend is a 1985 fantasy film released by Universal Pictures, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, and Tim Curry. Though not a very notable success when first released, it received a single Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup, and since its initial release, has developed...

.

Track listing

Credits

• Protector
  Richard Lederer (musician)
  Richard Lederer is an Austrian metal musician most notable for being a member in the bands Summoning, Die Verbannten Kinder Evas, and Ice Ages...
  
   - vocals, guitars, keyboards
• Silenius
  Michael Gregor (musician)
  Michael Gregor is an Austrian musician who is currently in the bands Amestigon as vocalist, Kreuzweg Ost as programmer, and Summoning as vocalist, keyboardist, and bassist; the two latter bands are bands that he is a founding member of. He supplied vocals for Abigor from 1994 to 1999 and appeared...
  
   - vocals, keyboards
• Tania Borsky - vocals on 'Like Some Snow-White Marble Eyes'

Lyrical references

Stronghold marks the first time in which not all lyrics were derived from J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...

• Rhûn is Elvish
  Elf (Middle-earth)
  In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Elves are one of the races that inhabit a fictional Earth, often called Middle-earth, and set in the remote past. They appear in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings, but their complex history is described more fully in The Silmarillion...
  
   word for "east" and was the name used for all lands lying east of Middle-Earth
• Long Lost where no Pathway Goes" is taken from the Lays of Beleriand, The Lay of the Children of Húrin and a Tolkien poem about St. Brendan's Death, called Imram.
• The Glory Disappears is taken from William Wordsworth
  William Wordsworth
  William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
  
  's poem "Loud is the Vale" & "Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree"
• Like Some Snow-White Marble Eyes is about when Húrin
  Húrin
  Húrin is a fictional character in the Middle-earth legendarium of J. R. R. Tolkien. He is introduced in The Silmarillion as a hero of Men during the First Age, said to be the greatest warrior of both the Edain and all the other Men in Middle-earth...
  
   is held captive by Morgoth
  Morgoth
  Morgoth Bauglir is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium. He is the main antagonist of The Silmarillion, figures in The Children of Húrin, and is mentioned briefly in The Lord of the Rings.Melkor was the most powerful of the Ainur, but turned to darkness and became...
  
  ) & the lyrics are derived from a poem by Robert Frost
  Robert Frost
  Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
  
   called Stars
• Where Hope and Daylight Dies is from the Tolkien poem, "I Sit Upon the Stones Alone"
• The Rotting Horse on the Deadly Ground is taken from "the Song of Eriol" from the Book of Lost Tales".
• The Shadow Lies on the Frozen Hills is lyrically based on two poems found in The Fellowship of the Ring
  The Fellowship of the Ring
  The Fellowship of the Ring is the first of three volumes of the epic novel The Lord of the Rings by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It takes place in the fictional universe Middle-earth. It was originally published on July 29, 1954 in the United Kingdom...
  
  , in the chapters "A Conspiracy Unmasked" & "Many Meetings"
• The Loud Music of the Sky was taken from an anonymous poem called 'The Fairies' Song'
• A Distant Flame Before The Sun the lyrics are taken from the "Song of Eärendil" which was written & performed by Bilbo
  Bilbo
  Bilbo can refer to:*Bilbo Baggins, protagonist of The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien.*Bilbo, the Basque name for Bilbao, the major city in the Basque Country of northern Spain...
  
   in Rivendell
  Rivendell
  Rivendell is an Elven outpost in Middle-earth, a fictional realm created by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was established and ruled by Elrond in the Second Age of Middle-earth...
  
  ("The Ring Goes South" in The Fellowship of the Ring)