On select dates of their latest tour, Norma Jean have been playing an older, popular album of theirs in its entirety. That album, of course, is 2002′s Bless The Martyr, Kiss the Child, a metalcore landmark that numerous fans still argue has yet to be matched by the group’s subsequent releases. With so many reunions and anniversaries emerging, the concept of revisiting an album live on tour is not uncommon for metal bands these days. The Melvins covered Houdini for a short multi-city tour, Boris took on Feedbacker at New York’s All Tomorrow’s Parties fest and stoner doom demigods Sleep performed Holy Mountain at the Minehead, UK ATP, throwing in some Dopesmoker to boot! Hell, even stadium-fillers like Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band are trying their hand at it.

However, what makes Norma Jean’s choice of Bless The Martyr, Kiss the Child somewhat unusual is that the current incarnation of the band is radically different from the lineup from 2002.

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Norma Jean have been playing their excellent Bless Yo Mama and Kill the Chives (or whatever its called) in its entirety on their most recent tour, and I’m hopeful that re-living those songs night after night will give the band back some of the piss n’ vinegar they lost on their last two albums, Redeemer and The Anti Mother, both of which I thought were watered down and missing the sense of “What the fuck will they do next?” that made Bless and O God, the Aftermath so great.

That being said… they’ve also been playing a new song, “Kill More Presidents,” on this tour, and while the usual YouTube bootlegs are all I have to go on, they’re of fairly decent audio quality, and I don’t find the track encouraging. This sounds like more of the fairly typical metalcore stuff the band specialized in on those last two ho-hum outings.

Here’s the first video, which was originally posted on Blabbermouth. There’s another one after the jump. As usual, you can argue about the track in our comments section.

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Here’s the best tweet I’ve seen all week, from Norma Jean:

just had a brief conversation about the direction for the next record which we will soon write. A little “back to our roots” is in order.7 minutes ago from web

If that turns out to be true, I will be one happy motherfucker. I know that MetalSucks’ own Gary Suarez disagrees with me that the most recent Norma Jean record sucked, but how anyone could think that “Robots 3, Humans 0″ is better than this is beyond me:

-AR

I’ve been dying to see Gojira do a full headlining set for a long time now, but said desire increased a hundred fold after I watched them pretty much blow In Flames off the stage back in December. Seriously: anyone who says the French are weaklings has never seen this band live. Because they will crush you. Crush your balls.

So. Looks like I’ll get my chance to see Gojira play for at least an hour this spring, when they’re doing a headlining trek with The Chariot and Car Bomb as support. I’m honestly not that familiar with The Chariot’s music, but I do know that Norma Jean started their descent into being the world’s most boring band after Josh Scogin left the fold; and Car Bomb are the tits. And even if you don’t like either of those bands, well, have I mention that FUCKING GOJIRA WILL CRUSH YOUR FUCKING BALLS?!?

Tour dates after the jumperooni.

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It may slow in the doldrums of summer, but it’s always hot here at the MetalSucks Mansion. This week in metal:

• You all argued about the merits of booze vs. drugs vs. soberness at shows.
• Ladder Up An Ass stole the show at Rockstar Mayhem Fest; best supergroup EVAR!
• At All Cost went on hiatus. We cried.
• You asked Anton OyVey, and the MetalSucks Mansion resident Reb responded.
• Math dorks After the Burial get super-dorky with math dorkfest.
• Axl uses the phrase “Snore de Force” to describe Norma Jean’s new album.

See you Monday. Have a good one.

Ever had really good foreplay followed by really mediocre sex? It sucks, doesn’t it?

During “Vipers, Snakes and Actors,” the opening track from Norma Jean’s new album The Anti-Mother, I actually became optimistic that I was hear the band return to form after the steaming pile of failure that was their last album, Redeemer. Don’t get me wrong – Norma Jean was never a great band by any stretch of the imagination – but on their Convergian O’ God, the Aftermath and especially Bless the Martyr, Kiss the Child, the Christian rockers made music that was loud, raw, and chaotic; it kept you on your toes because you never knew quite where it was going. “Vipers” promises more of the same, a complete one-eighty from the polished, bland, by-the-numbers pseudo-punk of Redeemer.

And then the second song on the album kicks in.

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Remember Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child, or O’ God, The Aftermath, when Norma Jean were basically Converge wanna-bes? And then they hooked up with Limp Bizkit producer Ross Robinson, and everything even remotely interesting about them went straight out the fucking window.

The downward spiral continues with “Robots 3, Humans 0,” the new song currently streaming on the band’s MySpace page. The music is bland, but the vocals basically make me wanna stick knives into my ear drums.

I’m saying this song isn’t very good.

ANYWAY, the track comes off an album called The Anti Mother, which Solid State will release on August 5. It promises to, um, have music on it.

-AR

Buzzgrinder alerts us that Christian metalcore pioneers Norma Jean are releasing their entire back-catalog on vinyl as a 4-LP box set. Bless the Martyr is too long for just one vinyl, hence the fourth disc — O God, The Aftermath and Redeemer will comprise the other two.

I’ve never been too much of a fan of this band, but I did at one time sort of get into O God, The Aftermath for a spell. Their output before and after just didn’t tickle my fancy.

I suppose if you’re a Christian metalcore completist and vinyl aficionado, this box set is for you. Otherwise it’s a pass.

Where do you guys stand on Norma Jean?

-VN

Yeah, okay–this band is kinda cheesy now, or at least a little less than awesome, but I will forever be a fan of Norma Jean‘s first album, 2002′s Bless The Martyr, Kiss The Child. This record strikes a superb blend of metallic, distorted mathy-screamo/hardcore, all the while incorporating a stripped-down teaspoon of melody and a healthy tablespoon of dissonance.

Norma Jean then was kind of like a younger, more accessible distant cousin of Converge (who we’ll talk about soon enough), but soon after the aforementioned N.J. album dropped, the band replaced their lead singer and bass player and the next couple recordings went downhill from there. O God The Aftermath (2005), helmed by ISIS and Mastodon producer Matt Bayles, throws down pretty fuckin heavily, but the band’s next record, produced by Ross Robinson, of Korn and Limp Bizkit fame, well….you know. The most recent material has somehow swung the Georgia band into the hard rawkin’ teeny-bopper arena, and solidified their status in the “screamo” world. But remember, even Jesus approves of a teenaged female fan base, or at least the pppperks of one.

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Multiple choice question: what do the following music videos all have in common? Is it:

a) They’re all both totally trendy and completely generic.

b) They’re all for songs that found their way onto my iPod after lots and lots of illegal substances ingested during TiVo’d episodes of Headbanger’s Ball made them seem like frickin’ masterpieces.

c) They’re all by Christian metal bands.

d) All of the above.

If you guessed “d,” you win… nothing. But if you want to see the videos to which I refer, click through the jump. Then feel free to rip into me like Demon Hunter’s drummer rips into a bag of Funyuns.

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