It must be at least 2 years ago I went to see Atreyu live for the first time. The support bands were He Is Legend and Norma Jean. I liked both bands way better than Atreyu and especially Norma Jean convinced me that night. But, lazy as I was after that night, I never put some energy in getting their record. Needless to say, I grabbed the opportunity to listen to their latest album, Redeemer, with both hands. Here’s the result.

 

Actually I’m having a hard time writing a decent review for this album. Not because I don’t like it, not because it’s weird stuff that’s out of my league neither because the album is too unoriginal. For some reason I just can’t completely get ‘into’ this album.

 

Redeemer is a more than decent metalcore album that’s pretty much capable of giving metalcore fans the pleasure they look for when listening to an album. Especially the more melodic parts, which aren’t too melodic fortunately, contain this catchy feeling that grabs my attention while listening. An example of that can be found in ‘Songs Sound Much Sadder’.

 

The screams do not necessarily sound like any other metalcore bands, but they still sound like the metalcore vocals I’m used to hear. As I’m writing this right now, I think I finally discovered what bothers me a bit about this album. It seems to me that the vocals are a little too soft. Sure, Cory Brandan has quite a good voice, but the instruments are a bit too present in the overall mix. More a matter of the right production I think.

 

Overall the songs on the album sound a bit too much alike. They’re all good individually, but when I listen to it as a whole, I’m missing a bit of variation on the album. I never get that extraordinary part that makes a song so special.

 

Norma Jean has done quite a good job on this album. It’s not entirely original nor is it the next best thing this year, but in the end Redeemer has enough quality on it to make one go see these guys live again some time.