Maximum Metal Rating Legend

Norma Jean - Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child - reviewed by: AFS

Track Listing1. The Entire World is Counting on Me, and They Don’t Even Know It 2. Face:Face 3. Memphis Will be Laid to Waste 4. Creating Something out of Nothing, Only to Destroy It 5. Pretty Soon, I Don’t Know What, but Something is Going to Happen 6. The Shotgun Message 7. Sometimes it’s Our Mistakes that Make for the Greatest Ideas 8. I Used to Hate Cell Phones, but Now I Hate Car Accidents 9. It Was as if the Dead Man Stood Upon the Air 10. The Human Face, Divine 11. Organized Beyond Recognition

Norma Jean is a band of change. The name of the band has changed, as did their record label. Being a fan of their debut album on Tooth & Nail when they were still called Luti-Kriss, I decided to pick up a copy of the band’s latest release Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child, on Solid State. When I finally sat down and listened, I realized I had gotten one of most innovative metal albums to be released in the past couple of years.

If you heard Luti-Kriss, you’d think this album would be a hardcore album in the vein of Poison the Well or Eighteen Visions. But with the name change, came a style change, as the band seems to have adopted a more metalcore sound.

Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child is insane. Every musician seems to have a different musical idea and they all seem to fall in together perfectly. The opening track, "The Entire World is Counting on Me, and They Don’t Even Know It", is a 3-minute train wreck, constantly stopping and going again. But it grabs your attention, and really doesn’t let you go until the end of the album.

Songs like "Memphis Will be Laid to Waste", with its haunting guitars, and "Creating Something out of Nothing, Only to Destroy It", with its crushing breakdowns and insane drumming, make this album an instant favorite. The track "Pretty Soon, I Don’t Know What, but Something is Going to Happen", is a 15-minute experience that is of the coolest things I’ve heard in quite a while. Definitely worth the listen.

Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child is an album for the fans of bands like Dillinger Escape Plan and Converge. Yes, this is still hardcore, but you’ll be so caught up in what’s going on, that you won’t really realize it. The vocals aren’t gutteral, but they are still sick. The guitars aren’t flashy, but they play some of the craziest shit I’ve heard. And the drums are flat out incredible. Well worth the money.

Rating: 9 out of 10

The Arbitrary Fetus Smasher


--AFS 03.19.03