As from the beginning of it’s career Unleashed always was a band, which was keeping a good level, even if they have their ups and downs- they never went to a bad level (however, two previous records were really, really close to it). Although, band recorded some albums, that were only at “OK” level.
Sworn Allegiance is one of that records. The strongest part here are guitar parts, sometimes they go into really great harmonies, band also serves us plenty of nice riffs, especially in the song Metalheads (which is actually a non-typical record for the band, and doesn’t fits album at all- but what can I say? I like it the most). We can also see a little change in vocals- Hedlund goes a bit higher, than he used to do, but actually it’s a good idea. This fits the music really well.
The biggest problem here is a fact, that this album has a good songs, and bad songs, so it’s hard to rate it overally. “Longships are coming”, “Metalheads” or “Winterland” are really killers. But “One Night In Nazareth” for example is nothing special.  And there is one really big disadvantage of that album- I can’t remember the last time, when I’ve met such a stupid lyrics. Seriously, I’ve never been into viking-theme, but Unleashed here looks like a grotesque sometimes.
To conclude- old, half-legendary band follows it’s way. We’ve got here a lot of typical Unleashed’s sound, some experiments and a totally medium-level album. Way better than for example “Hell’s Unleashed”, but still far from band’s brightest albums.

Wojciech Michalak