The Crusade (album)

The album represents a drastic change in style from their previous album, Ascendancy, abandoning the metalcore genre and featuring a style described generally as thrash metal[13][14][15][16][17] and reminiscent of thrash metal band Metallica's 1980s albums,[18] along with progressive metal[19] and speed metal.[17] As a result, vocalist Matt Heafy used much less screaming and more of a clean vocal style similar to James Hetfield throughout most of the record.[18] Heafy justified this by noting that "the four of us were never into bands that scream and we don't like any of the current bands that scream, so we asked ourselves why we're doing it."[20] Growled vocals would return as a regular attribute on the band's proceeding album, Shogun, although screaming can be found at some points in The Crusade, most notably in "Becoming the Dragon".

Lyrical themes on the album include famous killings. "Entrance of the Conflagration" is about Andrea Yates's murder of her five children, "Unrepentant" is about Nazir Ahmad's murder of his three daughters and stepdaughter, "Contempt Breeds Contamination" is about the death of Amadou Diallo, and "And Sadness Will Sear" is based upon the murder of Matthew Shepard.[21] Another common theme on this album is unity or "being united" with songs like Anthem (We Are the Fire) and The Rising. Another lyrical theme that is noticed is in the song "Becoming the Dragon," which is based on the Japanese mythological story of the dragon (how the koi will swim up the waterfall known as "Dragon's Gate" where it is thus transformed into the mythological beast).

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[19]
Blabbermouth.net	8.5/10[17]
IGN	8.1/10[22]
Sputnikmusic	[23]