Perhaps it was that best-of compilation of 2012, The Meanest Hits. Maybe it was their big screen adventures in Beautiful Machine, that revealing documentary of the same year. Or it could date back to Ignite, 2010's confident but relatively sedentary Shihad album that had little bite to go with its bark.
Whatever it was, a feeling of complacency seemed to be seeping into the Shihad camp. No one would blame fans for thinking that after a 26-year career, yielding nine often brilliant, sometimes wayward, and occasionally awkward albums, the Wellington-bred, Melbourne-based foursome might have said all they had to say.
Within minutes, FVEY - pronounced "Five Eyes" - has smashed that theory in its face and knocked it out cold.
That's thanks to the one-two opening punch of Think You're So Free, the blitzkrieg first single that combines jagged riffs with Jon Toogood's rousing "Do you think we'll wake up?" call to arms, and the chilling title track, which locks into a gargantuan groove and rides it for a thrilling five minutes as Toogood rants about how "our freedom is already sold".
It's an impressive start to Shihad's politically-charged tenth album that seems intent on proving just how much mongrel they have left in them.
