Well, this is interesting.

Rather than unveil the cover art that Jason Oda of Starvingeyes.com has created for their new album, Meridional, the traditional way – e.g., with a still photo – Norma Jean have actually made a teaser video featuring said cover art. The clip debuted on Noisecreep earlier today.

The pro of this approach is that we get to hear a snippet of a new song from the album, “The Anthem of the Angry Brides.” And while it’s less than forty seconds of actual music, I gotta say, it already sounds better to my ears than anything they’ve done since O God, The Aftermath - it really sounds like they brought the heavy/crazy back, and heavy/crazy is what this band has been missing on their last couple of albums.

The con of this approach is that there isn’t a single shot in the video of the entire cover at once, which means that even strategic hitting of the “pause” button won’t allow you to really study and appreciate the art. That might not be a big deal to the young ‘uns who don’t really care about album art, but to old fogies like me who are still really into cover art, it’s a bummer – not least of all because what we do get to see looks pretty cool. But hopefully an actual picture of the cover will be released soon.

Watch the vid below and see what you think. I had to sit through a commercial about how my dog needs to brush his teeth or some shit first, but dem’s da breaks.

-AR