Review Summary: O God The Aftermath
Norma Jean has quite the repertoire when it comes to their music and fans. They have steadily been changing their sound throughout their entire music career, each album sounding very different from one another. With their latest release
The Anti Mother they have yet again changed their sound, but this time it is not for the better. They have completely abandoned anything and everything that made them who they were on the albums
Bless The Martyr, Kiss The Child, and
O God, The Aftermath, which are held as the bands two best releases. They have changed in favor of a more accessible, radio friendly sound with a lot more melody and almost none of their trademark guitars and slides that they were known for, honestly this is something I could imagine hearing on my local radio station and not knowing who it was. They still retain some of their old elements but they just don't stand out like they used to.
The music on
The Anti Mother is much different than anything that Norma Jean has released before, which I will give them credit for. One of the main things I look for in a bands newest release is a sign of progression, and if they are trying things outside of their usual elements. It's nice when all those things can contribute to a band making a great album, but in this case it falls short, way short. The guitars are very bland and monotonous, sounding like you've just heard everything before, theres absolutely nothing on here that is going to grab you and get your blood pumping. Songs like "Vipers, Snakes and Actors" try to be heavy and end up forcing it and sounding completely horrid. While songs like "Self Employed Chemist" will make you wonder just what they were going for, from the get go you can tell (especially in this song) the sound they have now adapted. In every aspect of it, this album is completely mediocre, there is nothing stand-out about any of the instruments on this album. The drums are drowned out by the over-bearing guitars and (of course), you couldn't hear the bass on this album to save your life. The vocals are dry and uninspired and for lack of a better term, hollow. Tracks like "The Longest Lasting Statement" (from 2006's
Redeemer), by the end of the song singer Corey Brandon would sound completely exhausted, really amplifying his emotions but now they sound the same in every song. There is absolutely no variation between each song when it comes to the vocals.
There are also just a bunch of unnecessary things in the music. I.e. white noise, and random noises which is to be expected since they have used elements like that in the past, and even in one song ("The Birth of the Anti-Mother") they have what sounds like a cheer. Yes...a cheer said by a few dozen female voices that mimic the lyrics. I don't know who told them that, that was a good idea but it definitely misses the mark by more than a few degrees when you hear it.
The amount of negatives for this album is astounding, but there are a few redeeming qualities about this album. If you are a fan of more melody in your music then you might like this a bit, there is a ton of it on this album. But if melody is your thing, then there is plenty of that in this album. Another pro is that the album is very tight itself, there has never been any doubt in my mind that these are talented young men, they are able to keep timing with each other during some parts that are sometimes a chore to listen to, let alone play. They have still kept some the elements that made them likeable from the get-go in songs like "Surrender Your Sons" and "Robots 3 Humans 0", but they are overshadowed by forced melodies and go unnoticed sometimes.
Altogether,
The Anti Mother is an album that completely misses the mark. Norma Jean was riding high on the success of
O God, The Aftermath and
Redeemer and decided to take the music in a slightly different direction. While I completely respect the fact that they wanted to go out on a limb and try some new things, (which every band should be doing anyway) they just didn't execute as properly as they were aiming for. The staggering amount of cons to the very slim list of pros for this album make it a complete disappointment for myself at least. If you've never heard Norma Jean check out the albums I mentioned above. If you are looking for the band that made
O God, The Aftermath to make another amazing album, then keep looking, this isn't it.
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