After ten years of spreading the vegan message, Earth Crisis called it quits in 2001. Now, about two years later, three of the band’s members are back to form the core of Freya, together with two new guys (yes, this brings the total to five guys. Well done!). Musically, Freya proceeds where Earth Crisis stopped. The latest EC albums already missed the power and brutality of the earlier stuff, and on As The Last Light Drains, Freya take the songs into a somewhat gentler, more melodic direction, although most of the songs (especially the songs at the end of the album, for some reason I can’t come up with) still have the same mid-tempo and metallic basis. New guitarist Darian Lizotte also signs up for vocal duty and his clean style of singing alternates nicely with Karl Buechner’s famous growls. The two singers usually split the work, but in songs like “Veritas” and “As The Last Light Drains”, Darian takes on most of the lyrics, while Karl takes care of almost all the vocals on “Resuscitate” and “Daisy Cutter”. This makes the songs stand out from each other nicely, something that wasn’t always the case on the Earth Crisis albums.

Some of the songs here aren’t as catchy as I would like them to be, but you can’t have it all.

A huge difference between Earth Crisis and Freya is the topic of the lyrics. Earth Crisis was famous (or infamous) for their rather militant look on the environment and issues like veganism, but these topics can’t be found on this album. I think that without exception ALL the songs here deal with loss and abandonment, most probably due to a lost relationship. This gives the lyrics an outright desperate and miserable feel, although the music does not necessarily keeps up with that, as it is still energetic and sometimes aggressive. I was quite surprised by this album, not in the least because Freya manages to sound like a new band and not some stretched-out Earth Crisis rip-off, even though the similarities are sometimes obvious. As The Last Light Drains is a pleasant release that should appeal to fans of (of course) Earth Crisis and maybe bands like Waterdown, who also balance between melody and a more brutal sound.