Norma Jean

Norma Jean

The Anti Mother

[4/5]

Hyping this album based on the guest appearances alone would be easy. After all, Chino Moreno (Deftones) and Page Hamilton (Helmet) don’t just play on the record, they helped write parts of it. But there’s more here to be excited about, namely the huge artistic strides Norma Jean have made over four albums. On The Anti Mother, vocalist Cory Brandan stretches his pipes to sing Thrice-style anthems (“Robots 3, Humans 0”), but still manages one of noisy hardcore’s more convincing and dexterous screams for most of the album. “Discipline Your Daughters” is the new gold standard for controlled vocal abuse. The rest of the band have stepped it up on The Anti Mother as well, fine-tuning an already ridiculously tight engine. Guitarist Scottie Henry has a knack for finding chords between the chords and producer Ross Robinson is the right hammer for getting more blood from this six-stringed stone. (SOLID STATE) Oakland L. Childers

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