Review of Freya - As the Last Light Drains

As most people may know, that have heard of Freya, the band contains three members of the now defunct band Earth Crisis. Considering Earth Crisis is one of my favorite bands I was eager to hear what the band would sound like. Personally I was hoping they would bring me back to the days of Gomorrah's Season Ends, unfortunately As the Last Light Drains is more akin to Earth Crisis' last album, Slither.
As most Earth Crisis fans could have told you, Slither took the band in an entirely different direction from what the band was. Changing from bone-crunching, skull-smashing hardcore into a more upbeat sound along the lines of something like Rage Against the Machine fused with the Digimortal album from Fear Factory, with only slight hints of the past sound that once drove millions of hardcore-kids across the scene to beat the hell out of each other at live shows. Much of Darion Lizotte and Erick Edwards (ex-Earth Crisis) riffs are heavily driven by melody, harmonic riffs, and up-beat almost nu-metal type riffage. Freya actually contains a triple vokill attack with Karl Buechne (ex-Earth Crisis) of course leading the charge with his harsh vokill attack. Being he's one of my favorite hardcore vokillist, it made the album that much more enjoyable. Following suit on vokills are bassist Bulldog (ex-Earth Crisis) and Darion providing clean vokills. For me they took a while to get used to but eventually grew on me a bit and I found myself getting the catchy song structures caught in my head quite often, especially "Down in Flames" and the title-track. Corey Koniz does a nice job on the kit providing good rhythm with some solid double kicks along with Bulldog's signature heavier-than-sin bass riffs to provide the crunch when needed.
I, myself, wouldn't lay down the money for this particular album. Although there are some pretty decent tracks to be found, like "Down in Flames", "Throwing Rocks at a Drowning Man", and "Negative Infinity"; overall the album doesn't prove solid. However, if you enjoyed the final chapter in the Earth Crisis saga, Slither, there is not a doubt in my mind that you will eat up the debut offering from Freya. And if you ever were one not to give Earth Crisis a chance because of their stances on matters such as vegenism, animal liberation, and drugs, fret not because Freya is a band that deals with none of those subjects. Instead songs focus on emotion, not issues.

Release Details

Freya

As the Last Light Drains

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