The time finally came for Norma Jean to play my personal favorite album of theirs in its entirety. Redeemer was a daily album I would listen to in 2006-2007 and had a heavy influence on my music taste later as most of you could probably tell. I will start this by saying Toothgrinder dropped and I missed Chuggernaut.
Greyhaven
Genre: Mathcore/Southern Rock FFO: Every Time I Die, Maylene and The Sons of Disaster, Heavy Heavy Low Low
Greyhaven are probably the only reason I'm not only writing a review about Norma Jean. I heard one song of there's prior to the show and thought, 'these guys are worth checking out' but hearing more of their stuff live, I was very impressed. half the songs had that classic HHLL breath catching vocals followed by spastic screaming with chaotic ETID style riffs mixed with southern smoky bbq riffs reminiscent of He is Legend and Maylene. The vocalist asked who's heard them before and four people responded. "Four people huh? I think thats the most so far on the tour you guys are the best." Greyhaven is definitely a good blast into the past and an escape from 2018, brought to you by Myspace.
Gideon
Genre: I don't care FFO: I don't know
Around the time Gideon started I wasn't about it, so I went back to my car to play the game I've been binging for about a month, Fire Emblem: Warriors™ for the Switch. I thought that a level 50 recruitment mission in history mode would provide enough time to kill until Norma Jean would go on. With the map having the rival army consist of mostly dragons and archers, I considered using Lyn, Chrom, and Marth for their dragonslaying weapons along with my powerhouses Corrin and Navarre for good measure, and Frederick and Lissa as unplayable characters. I primarily used Lyn to takeover the forts with dragon captains and ordered chrom to do the same and sent the rest out to take out the archers, while keeping Lissa at the allied base. Darios appeared and began recruiting rival Commanders. I quickly switched to Navarre who was close by to Darios to escort him and defeat the reinforcements who were after him. Getting to the first commander, which was another dragon, went well until reinforcements came and begun an assault on my base, so I sent Lissa to heal the fort captain and quickly switched to Marth and used his warrior special to clear out any threat. Darios was on the move again to continue recruiting so I switched to Lyn who was the closest to him and we successfully recruited Elise and Anna. Word of advice, Lyn's speed matched up with her sixth strong attack makes for a great way to fill your warrior gauge quickly to make your battle a breeze. The enemies base opened reveal the commander to be defeated, Robin. Nothing Lyn's warrior special couldn't handle. Just one Warrior special depleted half of Robin's health. While dodging Robin's magic attacks, I was able to used Lyn's speedy strikes to kill enough of Robin's army and fill up my wrrior gauge once more and take him out. Victory was achieved with Lyn as the MVP. As soon as I got back to the middle east, Gideon ended and Norma Jean was just setting up.
Norma Jean
Genre: Mathcore/Metalcore FFO: Zao, Botch, Symphony in Peril
Norma Jean's setup was similar to when I saw The Dillinger Escape Plan's last Boston show. They had the same style stage light setup along the amps flashing chaoticly with the music. Aside from that, there were two blinding lights that were basically like the type a carpenter would use but brighter. Anyway, the carpenter lights were the only lights in the room shining bright when The Almighty Norma Jean triumphantly walked out, and without hesitation presented the crowd with A Grand Scene for A Color Film. the crowd jolted forward screaming along, myself included. The pit was a combination of hardcore dancing and old school 2005 circle pits. Immediately after they began Blueprints for Future Homes, I made it my mission to get in Cory Brandan face and scream "you're killing me, just bury me" most of my friends know that when I plan this, it happens and surely enough it did.
Cory stated that he was excited to be doing Redeemer and said it gives him the chance to actually talk about what the songs are about. For example, A Small Spark vs. A Great Forest is basically about how a disagreement can escalate to drastic proportions, or Cemetery Like a Stage is about how Cory was at home cleaning his house only to find out his father had been killed. Many more of them were mentioned and I apologize for not remembering them all.
Sometime between The End of all Things Will be Televised and Songs Sound Much Sadder, I believe, Norma Jean decided to throw in two songs from their newest album, Polar Similar. Personally I had yet to hear the album but hearing the song, I, the Planet, all I can say is: HEAVY. The other song was Synthetic Sun, which definitely impressed me as well.
One thing I can't help but point out, certain parts of the songs, Cory would make his voice sound like its cutting in and out through a vocal effect, but he was actually doing it himself, very odd but he could pull it off.
Surely enough Redeemer was played in full, from A Grand Scene to No Passenger, No Parasite. Each song had endless energy coming from the crowd, enough for Cory to state that Boston stage dives more than New York and we were just wild (Thanks Cory!). Norma Jean walked off stage in the dark with feedback playing over the speaker. The crowd was cheering "ONE MORE SONG" "NORMA JEAN" MEMPHIS". A few moments later....
The band came back out. Cory stated Norma Jean is a collective and the fans are heavily involved. Cory finally said "This song, is the foundation of Norma Jean. Bless the Martyr...Kiss the Child. MEMPHIS WILL BE LAID TO WASTE!" For a christian band, Norma jean spawned more chaos than any band I've ever seen play the Middle East. A mountain of fans went for the mic. Eventually Cory said "If you know the words..." the feedback stayed in the atmosphere but the music was paused. Cory was holding on to a pipe overhead, a second vocalist appeared, kids were jumping on top of each other and NOTHING EVEN HAPPENED YET. momemts and moments and moments later....NOW YOUR DOING THE WALTZ WITH YOUR MURDERER! the Kid doing Aaron from mewithoutyou's part crowd surfed while screaming in everyone's face as did everyone else for basically the entire song. Tons of energy you would think the earth was shaking. Norma Jean ended with a nice big " God bless you, God bless you all!" and the show ended.
This was incredible. A very important show for me by one of my favorite bads playing my favorite album, I couldn't be happier.
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