Freya - Lift the Curse

Well, I went into listening to this album expecting to hate it, but it is far too average for any strong feelings to be involved. The music and vocals are so indistinguishable from so many metalcore bands that I'd have to be an expert in the field to make any recognition. A band trying to accomplish something revolutionary or "punk" should be noticeable: either come across like The Locust or An Albatross, releasing controlled bursts of noise to confuse and befuddle the listener, or be dumbfoundingly aggressive and beat them into submission, a la Converge or a veritable cornucopia of extreme metal from the early '90s, or late '90s sludgecore aggression such as Neurosis and Eyehategod. But a band like Freya is really just riding on the coattails of a retail movement with its formula. The singer sounds almost entirely derivative of countless other bands, riffs are good and catchy but sound very similar to too many others, and the drums keep the time, but don't do enough to stand out. The bassist shows up every now and then to remind you he has an active pickup bass. Tack on a lackluster, slightly-off cover of "War Pigs" (which was more ably covered by Faith No More ages ago) to end the album, and you have an extremely boring listen. [www.victoryrecords.com]