Artist: Norma Jean
Label: Solid State
Release Date: 8/13/02
Rating: 1 Skulls
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Title: Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child Artist: Norma Jean Label: Solid State Release Date: 8/13/02
Rating: 1 Skulls |
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Reviewed by Redwolff (9/12/02):
Usually when I am waiting for the subway and there is a fellow with an acoustic guitar belting out Motown hits, I turn up my stereo to drown him out. This morning, I was tempted to do the opposite, as I was listening to Norma Jean, and the guy with the guitar sounded better.Norma Jean is another Christian band from Solid State who I had never heard of before, and is the re-badged Luti-kris, which I had never heard of before either. I must say that Bless the Martyr does not make me want to go out and dig up Luti-kris' debut album. You can talk about artistic style all you want, but there really is no talent in screaming-- I can scream, you wanna give me a recording contract? The vocals on this are not the only problem. The music itself is unoriginal and unmemorable, and for the most part consists of simple punk rock drums and repetitious droning guitar chords treated with plenty of fuzz pedal, all shellacked by a healthy coat of static. At times I wondered if the housekeeping staff in the studio were using the vacuum cleaner and the sound man just decided to leave the noise in. This is an album so over-engineered and distorted that most of the musical ability of the band members, should they have any, is lost in the wash.
I've never understood this kind of band-- seemingly bound and determined to be almost as unmusical as they possibly can. Harmony is replaced by cacophony and individual notes are smashed with a sledgehammer into dischordant, amorphous blobs. I have not enjoyed listening to this band, and if there is any message within their music that they wanted me to get I could only divine it from the printed lyrics, if I gave a shit, which I don't. Is there anything positive I can say about this album?
OK, track two is not wholly terrible. If you ignore most of the vocals (excluding the fun-to-scream-along-with chorus "SHE SIMPLY WILL NOT DIE!!") the song has a decent groove and slightly more interesting time signature than the rest of the album. Much the same can be said of track three, which has some moments of musical clarity-- which are, unfortuately, quickly overshadowed by more screaming and general chaos. Track seven does have a catchy opening riff.
So I guess the album is not a complete and total waste, but for all the attempts that Norma Jean makes to be different and noticeable, every time I lsten to this album (on sixth rotation at this writing) it sounds like I've never heard it before. Almost nothing is retained from one listening to the next. There are few, if any, hooks, and basically nothing to grab onto. Bless the Martyr goes right under my radar.
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