There are about 8 or 9 bands out there that I follow and I will buy all the CD’s they ever release to have them in my collection. The Noise Metalcore/Progressive band NORMA JEAN is one of them. On August 5 they released their 4th studio album entitled The Anti Mother which is also known as NORMA JEAN –vs- The Anti Mother. When current vocalist/songwriter Cory Brandon joined the group after the departure of frontman Josh Scogin, [Currently with The Chariot] he promised that each new album would have its own distinct sound. Three albums later, that promise is still good.

Before the album’s release, I happened to get a hold of two songs from The Anti Mother; The Birth of the Anti Mother and Robots 3 Humans 0. At first, I wasn’t sure what to think of Robots 3 Humans 0. It was quite different from anything that NORMA JEAN has ever done. It wasn’t any less brutal or heavy than their previous stuff, but there wasn’t an all out vocal assault like on other songs, there were vocals that were actually sung and not screamed. It was much more melodic than previous songs. After a few more times listening to Robots, I was hooked. The beat was catchy, the chorus was catchy and made me wanna sing along, yet it was still brutal enough to be called a NORMA JEAN song. Birth of the Anti Mother was a different story; it was your standard NORMA JEAN fare with a wall to wall vocal assault and brutal discord on the twin guitars. There is one thing that caught me off guard and makes Birth stand out, toward the end of the song there is a line that goes “We came here for blood. Did you? Yes or No? which sounds is repeated twice and sung like a cheerleader chant by what sounds like actual cheerleaders. I quite liked both of these songs and was anxious to see how the rest of the album sounded. I wondered if it would sound more like Robots or Birth_.

Leading off the album is a song called Snakes, Vipers and Actors which reminded me of something from their album O God, The Aftermath which is their heaviest if not most brutal effort to date. Vipers is followed by The Self Employed Chemist which is an amazing track and is NORMA JEAN’s most melodic song to date and is almost all sung not screamed in Cory Brandon’s gravelly voice which is reminiscent of a more strained Switchfoot. Then come Birth of the Anti Mother and Robots 3 Humans 0 which are both spectacular tracks. Death of the Anti Mother follows and is quite possibly the most brutal track on the entire album, musically, vocally, and lyrically. It starts off very slow but features a low baseline throughout the entire song that gives it a very dark and brutal tone.

On first listen, the four tracks after Death of the Anti Mother sound sub-par when compared to the first five stellar tracks. Tracks 6 through 9 are riddled with many guest vocals and the most notable of these is Chino Moreno of the Deftones who helped mix the album. This doesn’t mean that they’re bad tracks by any stretch of the imagination, just not as good as the first five. After a few more listens through the album, these for tracks began to grow on me more and more. The most notable of these four tracks is Murphy Was an Optimist which has many of the same qualities as Robots 3 humans 0. The final track which is titled And There Will Be a Swarm of Hornets ends the album as spectacularly as it began and is a fantastic ending track for the album implementing the use of their new found melodic edge and their no holds barred brutality. I was glad that NORMA JEAN retained the sound that made them famous, but i also like to see that they are branching out and trying new things. As it turns out the new album seems to be a good mixture of the sounds of Robots 3 Humans 0 and Birth of the Anti Mother.

Another thing I must mention that is different from their previous albums are the lyrics. I have read them all the way through multiple times and they are much less vague in their meaning than lyrics from their other albums. That being said, don’t expect to be able to read through the booklet once and understand what the album is about. The lyrics are in fact quite intellectual and require one who is himself/herself very intellectual to be able to fully understand them. NORMA JEAN also classifies themselves as a “Christian” band and it has always been somewhat difficult to tell what with their vague lyrics but this time they make overt references to their Christianity. In the song Robots 3 Humans 0, they sing;

“And I’ll stand through all these lines just to make it back to you. Can you help me every step of the way? We can bury that battle and bury the cause. There is nothing that I can say because I was wrong this time. I was the one that built that cross and weighed you down. And now I’ll carry on till its over.”

It seems to me that the Anti Mother is a metaphor for Sin and the Original Sin that kept us out of Heaven until Jesus came and opened it to us when he “killed” Original Sin and overcame death. The album goes on to say that even though Jesus destroyed Original Sin we still have to contend with the “Children of the Anti Mother” or other sins and that we are not saved simply by Jesus dying for us. The lyrics on NORMA JEAN –vs- The Anti Mother are very religious, but not so overt as to let you see the meaning right away. I would honestly love to hear from Cory Brandon what exactly the album means, but for now I have to just speculate NORMA JEAN makes you think.

As a huge fan of NORMA JEAN, I love this album and would recommend it to everyone. Sadly however, if you are not a fan of any kind of metal, especially brutal noise metal, this album, and in fact, this band is not for you. But if you like metal, or are simply a music lover with a taste for intellectually stimulating lyrics, this is a MUST and I highly recommend it.