January 13, 2010

Best of the Decade, Number Six: Norma Jean – Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child

Bless the Martyr and Kiss the ChildArtist: Norma Jean
Album: Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child
Release Date: Aug. 1, 2002
Label: Solid State

I remember seeing Luti-Kriss at a festival some years ago. Yeah, Luti-Kriss. With the sea horse and all. Then I remember hearing that they changed their name to Norma Jean. It being the early aughts — and misspelling things on purpose still being all the rage — I thought to myself, “Why’d they change it to something lame like Norma Jean.”

Then I heard their debut, Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child… and was blown away. I’m not really sure what to say about it other than that. For a kid who mainly had focused on indie rock in his musical discovery to that point, Bless the Martyr was an eye-opener.

It was this loud, unorganized mess of wailing guitars and incessant screaming. Granted, it’s not like I’d never heard anything in the genre before. It’s just that I’d never heard anything as compelling. Subsequently I started to devour anything loud, raucous and noisy, thinking I’d just leave Bless the Martyr at the wayside when I discovered even more compelling noisecore/hardcore/post-hardcore/grindcore/whatevercore. You know how it goes.

Well, I certainly got my hands on other stuff that blew me away, but that first Norma Jean album never made its way to the “ho hum, old news” pile. And to all those folks who’ve been badmouthing Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child over the last few years, eat it. We all know when this album came out, you were frothing at the mouth, too.

52 Responses to “Best of the Decade, Number Six: Norma Jean – Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child”

  1. On 01/13/10 10:13 AM, Jay DiNitto said:

    One of the only “jud jud reet” albums that matters.

  3. On 01/13/10 10:37 AM, Sean Cannon said:

    i think you encapsulated it all in less than one sentence, jay. i should’ve just written that instead. seriously.

  5. On 01/13/10 10:39 AM, conditioned said:

    Having seen these guys 4 or 5 times in the Luti-Kriss/Norma Jean transitional period, I could never take them seriously because they had scheduled fall-down/tackle parts in their songs. This album was ok, but no match for “Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest” aka the best Christian metalcore record, and likely the biggest influence on Norma Jean.

  7. On 01/13/10 12:22 PM, luke said:

    ummm…no. that record ruined the whole metalcore genre. open drop d(or c, i forget what they played in) and dissident chords do not make songs. you talk about lazy songwriting with radiohead? this is the laziest written record you could possibly make and stupid ass scene kids ate it up. meanwhile any band and musician i knew just shook their head in disappointment. this record was the beginning of the end of well thought out music for the genre.

    conditioned, you were close but zao’s best is Liberate.

  9. On 01/13/10 12:32 PM, Sean Cannon said:

    i don’t think this album is lazy (but it’s not necessarily erudite songwriting that makes it a good album). i just think most of the stuff it inspired was lazy — and bad. like jay said, this is one of the few chug-wee records worth talking about.

    it may have ruined metalcore, but i wasn’t a fan of that genre before or after this album came out. so oh well.

  11. On 01/13/10 1:16 PM, Sergio Hernandez said:

    There are only a handful of great metalcore albums (and half of them have the word “Zao” on the cover) so acting like this album destroyed such a once oh-so-distinguished genre is laughable especially considering that most of the musicians were hardcore kids who listened to Slayer but didn’t have to chops to make it in a real metal band.

    Hey Sean, how’s THAT for a 50+-word sentence with no comma in sight?!

  13. On 01/13/10 1:17 PM, sammy said:

    I definitely didn’t vote on this, but I would say that this album somewhat stands out among countless others in this genre. Of course, I kinda like Demon Hunter, so my opinion probably doesn’t count here.

  15. On 01/13/10 2:02 PM, luke said:

    sergio – “There are only a handful of great CHRISTIAN metalcore albums” , i fixed that statement for you. believe me, i’ll be the first to agree that before bless the martyr metalcore was not an “oh-so-distinguished genre”, but there was lots of potential there, specifically NOT in the christian scene. Norma Jean comes in and writes 40 minutes worth of chug breakdowns, sell 100,000+, and next thing you know, every band wanted to sound like them. that cd is when metalcore started metalcore becoming extremely redundant

  17. On 01/13/10 2:11 PM, Sergio Hernandez said:

    I dunno, man. By 2002, bands like VOD and Earth Crisis were on their last leg and Hatebreed was too busy touring with Slipknot on Ozzfest to write anything good.

    I may completely forgetting some really good metalcore stuff around that era, though, which is very likely in my old age. What’s some stuff you recommend?

  19. On 01/13/10 2:24 PM, Jay DiNitto said:

    “Blood and Fire” is pretty up there, but I think Strongarm’s “Advent” inches above it.

  21. On 01/13/10 2:27 PM, Jay DiNitto said:

    Somewhat related and timely:
    Top 10 Christian Metal Bands

  23. On 01/13/10 2:51 PM, A.J. said:

    lol, I jam this once or twice a year
    I remember seeing luti-kriss at Furnace Fest 2000 year and being hypnotized by all the tackling and writhing around on the floor. A few years later I saw Norma Jean at the Shim Sham in New Orleans and Scoggins picked up Chris by he crotch and threw him and I thought “man, that looked painful”. Then I saw the Chariot a few years back at C-Stone and kept thinking “man, I wonder if they have health insurance….they should”, eventually I left because it was too loud and I couldn’t even tell what was going on with the instruments. lol @ getting older.

  25. On 01/13/10 2:59 PM, Sergio Hernandez said:

    Jay, I was really looking for secular picks, really. Zao’s second and third albums for Solid State are classics as is Strongarm’s entire (if too small ) catalog.

    Around the turn of the centry, and correct me if I’m wrong, it seemed metalcore was all but regulated to Solid State releases. I mean, you had stuff from Ferret (meh) and Trustkill (double meh) but nothing was really setting the world on fire like “Bless the Martyr” did.

    Blaming them for the subsequent rip-offs and dilution of the genre is a bit unfair.

  27. On 01/13/10 3:05 PM, Sean Cannon said:

    yeah, exactly. metalcore sucked before “bless the martyr” and it sucked again after “bless the martyr” — just for different reasons.

  29. On 01/13/10 3:18 PM, luke said:

    sergio – easily the 3 most important bands in metalcore are converge, cave-in, and botch. without those 3 bands we wouldnt have the majority of the bands we have today. but i’d list bands that put out cd’s much much more important and impressive(at the time) and before bless the martyr came out then bless the martyr… Coalesce, Poison The Well, Dillinger Escape Plan, btbam(believe their first was in 02), Merauder(huge influence to the genre), Integrity, Lamb of god, and even though they arent technically metalcore they heavily influenced the metalcore scene – In Flames, At The Gates, and Carcass. norma jean contributed shit

  31. On 01/13/10 3:29 PM, Sergio Hernandez said:

    Maybe it’s a matter of semantics because I love pretty much every band you listed but none crossed my mind when I thought of great metalcore bands.

    I think I’ve made my opinion of the metalcore genre known in this thread: I don’t care for it. Maybe I subconsciously play down any metalcore influence in Jupiter and Jane Done as a result.

  33. On 01/13/10 3:38 PM, luke said:

    cave in was metalcore before jupiter, but that is a great record. but that aside, i don’t really see it as a matter of semantics as much as it is that kids in the scene that listen to mostly christian bands don’t know to much about bands that arent christian or toured with christian bands(i’m speaking generally here), or for some reason(possibly spiritual reason) just always prefer christian bands to non christians.

  35. On 01/13/10 3:49 PM, Sean Cannon said:

    i agree with sergio, i don’t think of those bands as metalcore. i can see why they would be classified as such, but maybe i just subconsciously don’t associate them with metalcore because most metalcore blows ass these days.

    but i don’t think it has much of anything to do with what band is or isn’t christian. i’ve always considered bands like earth crisis and VOD metalcore, but i’m not sure how that has anything to do with christian associations.

    it’s just sort of happenstance that a lot of the shitty metalcore around these days is made by christian bands. there are plenty of shitty non-christian metalcore bands, too.

  37. On 01/13/10 4:07 PM, Jay DiNitto said:

    Two of my favorite bands that could be considered metalcore (Blood Has Been Shed, Misery Signals), I wouldn’t even call them that. Metalcore has been recycled way too much for more unique/better/whatever bands to be placed under that rubric.

    It’s like metalcore is an actual, single band that manifests itself in different people and different band names, but it’s all still the same band recording the same song.

  39. On 01/13/10 4:22 PM, sammy said:

    But Norma Jean crossed out of the Christian market and sold a crap ton of records, selling more albums than a lot of those bands. But yeah, Botch, Dillinger, Deadguy, Coalesce, Killswitch Engage, Poison the Well…all those bands are metalcore and have put out some decent stuff. Cave In really started the current trend in my opinion though, but their stuff doesn’t hold up as well as Bless the Marty did.

  41. On 01/13/10 4:32 PM, Sean Cannon said:

    jay swooped in and cracked a big ole knowledge egg all over this conversation.

  43. On 01/13/10 7:43 PM, Jay DiNitto said:

    For every 99 stupid observations, I come up with a good one. And I love eggs!

  45. On 01/13/10 9:57 PM, thestormmaster said:

    I have never brought a knife to a gun fight since this album, and I think Face:Face kills it still.

  47. On 01/13/10 11:29 PM, Branden said:

    Since when was Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge, Strongarm, Hatebreed or Kenny Loggins ever considered “metalcore”? It may seem that I’m too concerned with labels, but its really about the extreme difference between the sounds of these bands and bands that define the metalcore sound.

  49. On 01/13/10 11:32 PM, Branden said:

    BTW, Cave In is closer to freakin’ shoegaze than metalcore…

  51. On 01/14/10 8:48 AM, luke said:

    branden – guess you never heard until your heart stops? too lazy to reply to everyone else and one of our servers are down at work so i have to actually, you know, work. sucks.

  53. On 01/14/10 10:17 AM, sammy said:

    Yep, someone definitely missed a couple of Cave In records.

  55. On 01/14/10 12:45 PM, Cool dude said:

    is it correct that Josh Scogin was still in the band when this record came out?

  57. On 01/14/10 1:13 PM, Patton said:

    Zao is better the Norma Jean but not one is arguing that point. O’God the Aftermath was Botch ripoff. But I’ve always been a bigger fan of both Redeemer and The Anti-Mother more then Bless The Martyr. But fuck, I think the Chariot is light years better then Bless The Martyr.

  59. On 01/14/10 1:49 PM, luke said:

    basically everything they did after bless the martyr was a botch ripoff. the only good song they have was that one that chino from the deftones wrote.

  61. On 01/14/10 2:00 PM, Sean Cannon said:

    yeah, the post martyr stuff is less than stellar. and a botch ripoff.

  63. On 01/14/10 3:24 PM, AshleyJ said:

    Norma Jean is awesome. Screw all the haters. Luti-Kriss was good, but nothing in comparison to Norma Jean. Bless The Martyr and Kiss The Child is what made them really take off.

  65. On 01/14/10 3:27 PM, Cool dude said:

    can someone answer my question? was josh schogin the vocalist when this cd came out. and what the heck is with the guy with orange hair top left of the screen?

  67. On 01/14/10 3:50 PM, sammy said:

    Only O God was a Botch ripoff…I don’t know WHAT that next album was, maybe an Underoath ripoff. However, I think their new album is stellar and that they are really channeling some heaviness. That Paige Hamilton hangout time paid off. It’s awesome, this is, if you like Amphetamine Reptile stuff and just heavy rock.

  69. On 01/14/10 3:54 PM, luke said:

    cool dude – yes, thats josh on the cd. i believe his last show with them was furnace fest of 02, thats when the announcement was made anyways. i gladly missed them to watch cool hand luke instead though so i wasnt there first hand to see it.

  71. On 01/14/10 5:35 PM, Kory said:

    Josh was not in Norma Jean when this album came out.

    And people, if you hate metalcore, don’t listen to metalcore. I hate that gay 80′s and 90′s metal so I don’t listen to it. If you hate Norma Jean, don’t post stuff about it on a page talking about them, go back to whatever land of leather pants and redundant riffs you came from and let me like my chug-chug metalcore.

  73. On 01/14/10 5:36 PM, Kory said:

    Ok, yeah, josh left just after the cd came out, my bad.

  75. On 01/14/10 5:38 PM, samsisdead said:

    “Of course, I kinda like Demon Hunter, so my opinion probably doesn’t count here.”

    Hahahaha!

  77. On 01/14/10 5:40 PM, Dlea said:

    I’m way out of the loop with this conversation. I still have a hard time putting bands into the correct sub-genres. I do know, however, that this CD was amazing. Well, Josh Scogin is amazing. This CD completely changed my life. I agree that The Chariot is way better than Norma Jean though.

  79. On 01/14/10 5:42 PM, sammy said:

    I love that since I don’t like metalcore, I must instead like hair metal?

  81. On 01/14/10 6:05 PM, Kory said:

    Ummm, Not particularly. Listen to whatever makes you happy.

  83. On 01/14/10 6:10 PM, George said:

    Speaking of trends I believe this cd is the one that started the trend of 40-word song titles.

  85. On 01/14/10 6:18 PM, Sean Cannon said:

    oh no, that’s been going on for a long, long time across all genres.

  87. On 01/14/10 6:57 PM, slkdf said:

    UnderOath beats Norma Jean.

  89. On 01/14/10 7:05 PM, Jay DiNitto said:

    Kory, no one is forcing you to like or dislike anything.

  91. On 01/14/10 8:50 PM, Cool dude said:

    I agree with slkdf

  93. On 01/14/10 9:14 PM, tAlex said:

    I still think of this band as Luti-Kriss who recently changed their name to something else… Not being snobby or anything, just how I best remember them

  95. On 01/14/10 10:42 PM, Brandon said:

    Norma Jean, and Bless the Martyr in particular, owe everything to two bands. Eso-Charis and Deftones. They will tell you this themselves.

    Honestly, most Christian Metalcore, or Metalcore in general, must pay a debt to Eso-Charis. True visionaries from the dirty south. They practically invented “chug chug wee”. In Arkansas, they are still widely discussed and admired. And the bands they went on to form and play in… Living Sacrifice, Norma Jean, The Handshake Murders, Unwed Sailor… It’s pretty amazing. I still rock that record.

    Has anybody heard Fear Is The Driving Force? Its Cory and Mathew, the brothers from Eso. Cory is in NJ. I saw them a few months back. Fast, dirty, brutal.

  97. On 01/15/10 7:01 AM, Patton said:

    Fear is The Driving Force is pretty bad ass. Their demo is sick.

  99. On 01/15/10 10:02 AM, luke said:

    “Honestly, most Christian Metalcore, or Metalcore in general, must pay a debt to Eso-Charis.” good call. i can’t believe i forgot about that band.

  101. On 01/18/10 8:32 AM, ryanB said:

    Eso-Charis = Living Sacrifice = Soul Embraced? I don’t remember. But ya…that was always fun. The fact that one of the best “christian metal” bands could just go and make new music under a new name, and it stull be good stuff. There are a ton of better choices than Norma Jean but hey what the hell do I know.

  103. On 01/19/10 1:29 PM, sammy said:

    Not quite there ryanB. Two members of Eso-Charis eventually joined Living Sacrifice, but Sacrifice had already been kicking it. One guy is in Handshake Murders, one’s in Norma Jean, two are “members” of Bear Colony. And Soul Embraced is 2 guys from Living Sacrifice (neither of which was in Eso-Charis) and some other Little Rock guys.

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