Sunday, November 24, 2013

Norma Jean - Wrongdoers


Note: Dear friends, at this time I am unable to latch videos of the songs I refer to below. Until such a time that I am able to place those tunes in this article, please accept the below live clip and the official video for "If You Got It at Five, You Got It at Fifty" as an apology and a teaser. And pick up this record. It's filthy. 

            I would argue that I’m a patient person, and rarely the type to let anticipation dominate my mindset. However, when I heard at the beginning of the year that Norma Jean was working on a new album, I had no idea how to contain myself during the interminable wait. After devouring their previous catalogue over the past two years, Norma Jean quickly rocketed into my list of favorite bands, and the thought of new music to meet my fix was one that never left my head. And since it’s arrival at my doorstep three months ago, Wrongdoers has remained in heavy rotation, for the boys of Norma Jean are never ones to disappoint. 
            If there is one sound Norma Jean sought to capture with this release, it is the ear-pounding beat of adrenaline. Jeff Hickey and Chris Day match licks and chugs on guitar, through which the thumping bass work of John Finnegan demands to be heard. Clayton “Goose” Holyoak absolutely slaughters on his drums, ranging his approach from speed-metal thrashing to laying down beats worthy of a hip-hop record. His eclectic but rock-solid drumming feeds the focus of the instrumentation on creating serious, swaying grooves, something relatively unheard of from this act. But despite featuring three completely new members in the lineup, Wrongdoers lacks not at all for Norma Jean’s signature smashing heaviness, and Goose would argue this is perhaps the band’s most “pissed off” record to date[1]. The brutality and chaos that defines this band’s sound is a heavy presence, with every tune featuring disgustingly low tunings and no small amount of screeching feedback. The insanity and truth inherent in the mess of this group’s music shines throughout—indeed, the middle of “Neck in the Hemp” features a complete collapse of the song before an explosive return, which drives me wild every time. The sonic onslaught recorded on this record pure and honest in every way, and as always, super goddamn heavy.
            With Wrongdoers, it is wholly apparent that Norma Jean has spent some real time cultivating a sound so dynamic, it simultaneously encapsulates the sonic journeys of previous albums while maintaining an extremely distinct flavor of its own. After completing recording, Cory Brandan remarked on the new record that “we really pushed ourselves to do something really different while expanding on what we’ve done in the past.”[2] And while I always hate to place an album against its predecessors, with this one, the band deftly recalls old musical themes—or as Brandan calls it, “old school classic Norma Jean nastiness”[3]—and takes them farther than they had previously gone. For instance, “Hive Minds,” the record’s opener, features a long instrumental space reminiscent of Bless the Martyr & Kiss the Child, while “If You Got It at Five, You Got It at Fifty,” sounds like a b-side from the Redeemer days. Despite this, Wrongdoers maintains itself as the continued evolution of the band’s pounding voice. It is as soaked in the melodic melodies of later releases as it is driven by atonal, grindcore guitar that hasn’t really been heard since O’ God, the Aftermath. Brandan’s blatant juxtaposition of frank, beautiful vocals and guttural screams break ground that Norma Jean has only tasted previously, and the decision to focus the majority of the instrumentation in stomachable time signatures furthers this band’s foray into the melodic sector of hardcore, without sacrificing the fearsome voice for which they have always been known. 
            One of the most sonically interesting tunes from this record is the album’s closer, “Sun Dies, Blood Moon.” Clocking in at a little over fourteen minutes, it is an epic that effectively sums up the many themes and choices evident on Wrongdoers. Inherent in the tune are multiple references to the band’s previous work: the song is separated into two suites, a callback to O’ God, the Aftermath’s closer “Scientifiction,” and both the instrumental space and sheer length of the tune are highly reminiscent of the band’s first release. However, the definition in “Sun Dies, Blood Moon” obviously flows from the span of new sounds and approaches built into it. Opening with a clean guitar riff (practically a Norma Jean first), the heavy palm mutes and simmering vocals seem to be an apparent homage to Tool, and the small orchestra dominating the beginning of the second suite speaks to this band’s commitment to making interesting and meaningful music that is beyond themselves. Though the tune’s focus is melody from all angles, yet it lacks nothing of the grinding, heavy foundation this band has built itself upon, leaving “Sun Dies, Blood Moon” as a perfect amalgamation of everything that originally hooked me into this band and everything that keeps me craving more.

Check out this live amalgamation of "Sun Dies, Blood Moon" and "Disconnecktie" 

           Also groundbreaking for Norma Jean is Brandan’s performance, both vocally and lyrically. While the past couple of records have given him a taste of a singing voice, it is on Wrongdoers that he truly discovers how much that voice is worth. The album is an even mix between clean, sung melodies and heavy screams, and Brandan functions quite well in both realms, giving each style its due over the progression of their tunes.  “Sword in Mouth, Fire Eyes” is dominated by Brandan’s powerful and evocative melody, before transitioning into the brutal thrash-punk yells of “The Lash Whistled like a Singing Wind.” Accompanying the dynamo vocals are lyrics that, while not Brandan’s best, are consistently interesting and stuffed with raw emotion. Many of his phrases are straightforward, yet in some songs his word choices explode with originality, such as with the phrase “Unhand the knife drawer” in “Wrongdoers,”[4] while in others, he takes a cliché image completely reworks it, as in “Sword in Mouth, Fire Eyes:” “We calmly weigh our thoughts before we know them / Careful not to break our only scale.”[5] Many of these lines seem to focus angst and anger against the music industry, but Brandan’s images and allusions make this bloody pulp of a topic seem like a fresh corpse ready for beating—his comparison of a record company to giant man-eating plants through the title “Triffids” is brilliant in its brutal honesty.
            Although the lyrical content of Wrongdoers may be the weakest part of a strong record, Brandan and the rest of the band hit a grand slam in one particular tune. “Hive Minds,” the apocalyptic opener to the record, features music and verse that flow like pure poetry, painting an image of a world slowly being dominated by creeping vines. The tunes lyrics are the most solid on the record, as Brandan implores his listener to see the destruction slowly swallowing the world around him. His desperate vocals seem to writhe with energy, which is easily captured in his original approach to his lyrics. As in other tunes, he re-imagines a cliché into something light years better with his line: “Gravity may not be a law / but all things will find ground.” Furthermore, many of Brandan’s phrases, such as “change hungry hands” and “a sunset care ride with a bottle of meds” create such powerful images that they seem more worthy of a poem than a song, but his deathly screams assert that they belong to this saga alone. Mix that with a drawling instrumental bridge and a thunderous performance from all ends (especially Goose’s landmine drumming), and you have a monumental opener in “Hive Minds,” a sure sign that the end is indeed here, even if no one saw it coming.

"If You Got It at Five, You Got It at Fifty"


            With Wrongdoers, Norma Jean took a ton of risks. Between new sounds and an upheaval in the line-up, this record could be seen as hardly worth the title of a true release from this band. But spin this record one time and any doubt that what your hearing is Norma Jean will be erased. With this record, the band begins a move into a new era of music, one that Brandan calls “easily the most energetic.”[6] Wrongdoers is as brutal and honest as it gets from this group—it’s smart, it’s scary, it’s heavy, and it rocks. Embedded on this record is the simple truth of what a hard-working and fun-loving band is capable of, and if you haven’t picked it up yet, you are truly missing out.

Tunes to Check Out:
1) “‘The Potter Has No Hands’”
2) “Hive Minds”
3) “Triffids”