Review Summary: You wish it was as good as your heard.
First of all, I am tired of everyone being up old Norma Jean's ass for some reason or another. Just because it IS different, doesn't make it good, entertaining, or listenable.
The opening track, well really the first two, starts out with your typical NJ noisecore that they've gotten so used to doing. Just because the chord is dissonant, doesn't mean you have to play it. And the odd arpeggios that they do OVER and OVER in track 2? They get played out. Real quick. Don't get me wrong, they DO have good riffs. Theres one really good one in "Face:Face" and another at the end of the opening track, but its sandwiched by 2 minutes of junk on either side. Dissonance has it's place, but this album WAY over uses it. You could really just shove "It Was As If..." in a group with these 2. It's also just the simple NJ sound with nothing to write home about.
"Memphis..." now had potential. Let's face it, that riff is heavy and badass. But after listening to it for THIS long I wanted to skip to the next track. How long can you play one riff?? This song could have been the most epic thing if they had written 2 more riffs for it... Or changed that one riff that seems to "break down" and get slow. It definately doesn't fit. Oh, and you can hear the vocalist clearing his throat in the background. That just bothers me.
"Creating Something..." needed to create some substance. There's nothing to grab onto in that song. It's just a lot of random riffs. Same with "The Shotgun Message". The Shotgun Message is at least over in 97 seconds so you don't have to suffer through another song with no structure.
I'm not going to touch "Pretty Soon..." because it's a waste of 15 minutes of my day. I wanted it to go somewhere, but it never did. Thanks NJ.
"Sometimes It's Our..." is just slow and boring. The riffs are overly simple, an attempt to reach their southern roots I suppose, and it doesn't work. They did better jobs at this in later albums, but that's because everyone in the band now is pretty much in The Chariot.
Now I will say, I like a lot of the styling in "The Human Face, Divine". It seems like it fits together as a song better than a lot of the other songs. They get a little into riffing rather than just "open chord to dissonant chord" combo that they LOVE to chug through. I think the noodling, shredding I suppose, is a little more interesting that the simple dissonant chords they have just come to settle with. They still pull off that chaotic sound with being a little more creative than usual. And the slow parts are shoved in the song haphazardly. They seem to fit.
"Organize Beyond Recognition" has sever Memphis syndrome. It has some cool riffs, don't get me wrong, but like, after hearing it for 2-3 minutes, it gets old. It's an OK song at best, and really just too long. Cut this song down to 4 minutes, and you got a hit.
OVerall, this album just gets way too much ***in' credit. This band did. They had potential. There were great riffs on this album. Definitely. But there aren't any great songs. Not 1. I feel like they could have dissected this album and gotten one killer 4 song EP, but the rest of the album is a throw away. I don't know who thinks these guys coined the dissonant sound, but they didn't. They don't even do it that well on this album. It's just a lot of hype and a lot of let down. I wanted to love these guys like everyone else so badly, but I can't. You have to have more than just dissonance and heaviness. In the end, you do have to write riffs that just stick out in people's heads and that the crowd can bob their heads too. This album has none of that. The few riffs that ARE like that get overplayed (IE Memphis). Take what you can and burn the rest.
