Though ‘The Crusade’ had bought them a lot more room for stylistic manoeuvre, it was still generally received as little more than a mediocre thrash album and with this first taste of failure still hanging over them, ‘Shogun’ looked likely to end up another weak record. That may be the reason why it sounds so good.

The album begins with the soft chiming of acoustic guitars, launching into the full-scale audio assault of ‘Kirisute Gomen’. A strong opener, the song combines a vicious pounding beat with lightning paced riffs, moving into a slower catchy chorus. The much debated return of Matt Heafy’s death metal roar is also proudly on display, providing a healthy balance between the yelled vocal style of ‘The Crusade’ and its predecessor.

Shortly after comes the brilliant ‘Down From The Sky’. True as it may be that a heavy metal band writing a song about nuclear warfare isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel, the song is so catchy that you can almost forgive them. Flowing easily from staccato guitar into melodic choruses and then heavy riffs, the song only seems to fall down on its lyrics. Poetic genius like "they’ll blow it all to bits" makes the band sound immature and almost lazy. Sadly, examples just like it can be found all over the album.

However, this only detracts slightly from the strength of the record. Whether it’s in the brutal force of songs like ‘Insurrection’, the triumphant chorus of others such as ‘Of Prometheus And The Crucifix’ or the heavy groove of ‘Throes Of Perdition’, every track has something worth hearing. Furthermore, the recurring theme of battle and references to ancient culture such as "Scylla and Charybdis" add a flavour of the epic to match the grandiose feel of the album. Nowhere is this more evident than in the mighty Shogun which ends the record. A painting of light and dark, it mixes all the best elements of the record together seamlessly and deserves special praise. Blistering solos sit alongside mellow bluesy guitar and soft acoustic passages trade off with metal screams. Clocking in at over eleven minutes, there isn’t a second you’d want to skip and it perfectly concludes the album, with the chorus echoing the haunting acoustic chords from the start.

Altogether, Shogun is an album that won’t disappoint; out of eleven tracks it is hard to pick out a weak moment on the whole record. Showing the band can not only acknowledge the shortcomings of ‘The Crusade’, but turn them into something positive; the resulting sound is more diverse than ‘Ascendancy’ and makes Shogun the band’s best effort yet. What remains to be seen now, is whether they’ll be able to continue this success with their next release, or will they need another album of throwaway thrash to warm them up for it.