Sweatin To The Oldies...Norma Jean - Bless The Martyr, Kiss The Child

"Mediocrity is a killer"

Back in the summer of 2002 i recall watching the new version of Headbangers Ball they played a video from a band called Norma Jean for the song Face:Face and i remember thinking "what the hell is this?" and then i recalled reading about them briefly on amazon during my phase when amazon and kazaa were my only means of discovering new music, i remember thinking the music was very noisy and raucous and it was quite unsettling, upon further investigation into this band i decided to check them out, it took me forever to find the whole album online, in fact by the time i did, one of the local christian book stores finally got the album in and i couldnt have been more happy to finally own it...

I've probably listened to this album at least 30 or so times my senior year in high school and it still never really sunk in how good this album actually is. I know people who loathe this album and say this it is boring and generic...but in my opinion, not only does this album still stack of formidably with most bands doing this style 7 years later...but if this album were released in 2009 it would rank very high on most people's year end lists...it's got EVERYTHING! The guitar tone on this album is absolutely perfect, the lyrics and scogin's vocal delivery are absolutely incredible, the drumming on this album is very frenetic and very very very solid, the basslines are groovy, there are alot of noisy feedback drenched moments, lots of gigantic breakdowns, lots of very catchy bits of assorted guitar noise and feedback floating in and out, the song "Pretty soon, i don't know what, but something is going to happen" is one of my favorites on this album, when i was in high school it was my least favorite on the album, but now that i've become retardedly fond of bands like isis that have made a career out of feedback and noise and 15 minute songs that take 12 minutes to fully develop, i actually love that song on a whole new level.

If you want to break it down by song, the best songs on the album are at the very front, they are by far the most memorable, my favorite song on this album is "Memphis Will Be Laid To Waste" that song has EVERYTHING catchy memorable sing-a-long parts, absolutely filthy, disgusting riffage, the aaron weiss vocals on that song are absolutely gorgeous. Of course, Face:Face is the song that made me decide i needed to own this album, the songs other than 'Memphis...' that made me realize that this album was 100% completely worth my time were actually tracks 3 & 4 "Creating Something Out Of Nothing, Only To Destroy It" and "Pretty Soon, I Don't Know What, but Something is Going to Happen" make for an absolutely destructive 1-2 punch! 'creating something' starts out with one of the coolest drum patterns i've ever heard, and then the breakdown and all the chaos surrounding the lyrics "like bringing a knife to a gun fight" are just absolute magic, but what makes it so awesome is that as the song is ending it ends with a big fat heavy groove and alot of good sludgy guitar tone and builds into the next song which is a 15 minute monster...the tone on this song is so so heavy and the fact that it's 15 minutes long ensure there is alot of big huge dirty noise, but rather than just pointless instrumental wandering you can tell every riff being played on that song was played intentionally to build up for the next one which destroys that riff and then creates a new pattern that gets destroyed. Also, i love that when the song reaches just above the half way point Josh Scogin repeats the phrase "on and on and on and on and on and on" especially because people like myself who werent used to super heavy instrumental metal were thinking "yeah, it does go on and on and on and on" however due to the way that the riffs are so catchy and they just build on each other steadily is just awesome.

Josh Scogin's lyrics and vocals are incredibly volatile on this album, which fits the tone of the guitar and bass and even the drums perfectly. Every riff on this album serves a purpose, you can tell that there is certainly no filler on this album as every song adds something to the song before it, the only thing i don't like about this album is the fact that they threw the 15 minute mega-jam right in the middle of it, and while it doesnt kill the albums progress...it does leave it in a semi-meandering spot for a while, i mean, that many insanely catchy riffs all thrown together in one song would be better suited as the grand finale of the album. But my god, the guitar tone on this record is SO HEAVY! The thing that bothers me about this album though, is that even though it is known among Norma Jean fans as their best, nobody in any real metal circles ever gives this band any credit for what they did, most people just remember their blatant botch/coalesce rip-off albums that followed this one and they tend to forget how absolutely heavy this album really is, i know that it completely shattered my thoughts on how metal should be played, i mean, it's got alot of fantastically heavy songs, it's got alot of incredible groove from the drummer and the bass is very distorted and heavy and the guitars take on a life of their own in many different incantations and styles and sounds.

Of course i couldnt add enough 0's to the 10 this album would get if based on a 1-10 scale...however i've decided to see where it would possibly fit in my all time favorite albums of all time list, i think that because this album impresses me alot more now even than it did when i first started listening to it, that it definitely deserves a spot in the top 50, i would say that due to it's incredibly heavy, violent, technical, nature and the fact that there are so many riffs on this album that make me want to harm every living creature in a 10 mile radius, this album would fit quite comfortably at home in my top 25 so i'd say that out of my top 100 albums of all time this album would fit anywhere between 25-30 due to it's groundbreaking nature for the time and the fact that they've not yet since been able to come even close to the glory of this album, neither have any other bands in their genre really...plus the fact that it sounds even better now that i listen to it as a music snob, that this album is an absolute monster and i love it oh so much.