ALBUM REVIEW: Fight As One – Freya
Formed in 2001 out of the ashes of the legendary and since-resurrected EARTH CRISIS, Syracuse metallic hardcore outfit FREYA may have never made a record as influential as Firestorm or as brilliant as Destroy The Machines, but they have certainly carved out an interesting path for themselves over the past 20 years or so. Admittedly some of their records have been quite a lot better than others, but much of their best work has come when they’ve played to their strengths – i.e. muscular, groove-heavy metallic hardcore – as indeed is the plan for their sixth full-length Fight As One.
Seven years on from their previous effort Grim, Fight As One seems to put a halt to the increasingly progressive trajectory the band had started to take on their last few releases. Sensibly, it cuts the runtime back to a tight 28 minutes to avoid the accusations of bloat that you could have levelled at any of the three albums which preceded it, including arguably even their career best All Hail The End. These are short, high-aggro metallic hardcore tracks with thick and thunderous grooves backing the versatile talents of the inimitable Karl Buechner, and there was never much chance of the band getting that wrong when you consider the résumés of some of the individuals involved.
As if Buechner wasn’t a legendary frontman enough, Fight As One sees FREYA joined by three others on consecutive tracks that follow the album’s headbanging opener Nothingness Or God. Jamey Jasta, Freddy Cricien and Scott Vogel – that’s one Roger Miret away from a full house! Sense Of Doom with Jasta stands out as a firm contender for the strongest track on the record – perhaps because it has one of the hardest grooves, or maybe just because everything the HATEBREED frontman touches turn to gold – although of course both Cricien and Vogel cut through with powerful bellows of their own on the title track and lead single Thousand Yard Stare respectively. All three point once again to FREYA getting back to their hardcore roots, and there’s no question they form the strongest run on the record.
To be honest though, the names attached to Fight As One may well be the most interesting thing about it. There’s nothing particularly weak here, it just feels a bit like FREYA may be coasting a little, happy to put out completely passable metallic hardcore with relatively little variation or innovation. It means the album may struggle to hold the listener’s attention even as it passes by quickly and inoffensively enough, the slower, doomier heft of eighth track Beyond probably as close to a deviation from the record’s modus operandi as you’ll find and thereby standing out considerably as a result.
Maybe the best way to avoid this would have been to load the record a little differently, saving some of the eye-catching guest features for later on to keep listeners a touch more invested. But that’s not what they’ve done, and ultimately – as mentioned – none of this is a disaster. As the album arrives promptly enough at its conclusion, the closing pair of Destructive Path and Odin offer a few final flickers of light, each boasting a monstrous groove even as they do stick pretty firmly to type.
And that sums up Fight As One quite nicely really; it’s good enough at what it does, but that’s about it. FREYA have definitely made better records than this, and they’ve also made worse ones, and as such Fight As One just seems to land somewhere in the middle as a solid but ultimately quite safe effort that doesn’t do much to mark itself out as one to come back to.
Rating: 6/10
Fight As One is set for release on September 22nd via Upstate Records.
Like FREYA on Facebook.