Norma Jean Wrongdoers
By Mike Ritchie
Atlanta’s Norma Jean www.facebook.com/normajean release their sixth record and second offering from Razor & Tie, Wrongdoers. 11 tracks of loud in your face noise combustion, performing like bombs going off in your living room. Drenched in screaming metaphor the lyrics pound your face with annihilation minded symbolism.
If You Got it at Five You Got it at 50 is two minutes of angry, punk pit fury, thrashing against the mainstream’s current fame and fashion trends. It could be performed and welcomed in any dirty, dingy basement bar or backyard. The Potter Has No Hands plays a repeated high pitch cardiac heartbeat guitar chord with a thudding bass line sounding like a snow truck shovel hitting concrete. They make it sound loud, loud as hell.
Sword in Mouth, Fire Eyes, the calmest a tune can sound if a blade was hovering at puncture distance introduces the first bit of sung melody, teetering in mid-tempo waters. The bizarre 50 second self-help track After Hour Animals melds in playing on an old lopsided phonograph giving quick relaxation techniques to the mentally quarreled listener. Triffids plants sharp toothed bad thoughts of the world ending in your mind.
The disc’s 14 minute plus finisher Sun Dies, Blood Moon plays in such sharp contrast to its predecessors you might check the CD to be sure it’s the same disc. SDBM is a departure to the point of being alien to the rest of the preceding mayhem. Arguably ‘the ballad’ its slow churning bluesy notes take us to a vampiric old west at dusk as musical coyotes howl from the strings and loud, deep bass slides bring the last sundown. Vocals start calm and roughly soft before the scream comes. Then three minutes in everything stops as a classical element enters the room restoring calm, nurturing vocals briefly before the screaming is missed. Norma Jean leave you with six minutes of scratchy, edgy ambiance and white noise designed to bring you down from everything you’ve just heard.
