Ask most serious bands about the recording process, and if they
don’t compare it to giving birth, they’ll likely tell you that making
an album is akin to psychotherapy. But let’s be real here: How many of
those bands actually take the album-as-therapy idea literally? For
Atlanta quintet Norma Jean, who for all intents and purposes should be
some of the most content dudes in underground music right now, the
recording sessions for their third album, Redeemer, which charted at
#38 its first week on the Billboard Top 200 sold a staggering 21,334
copies, packed group therapy, boot camp and endurance test into one
gnarly package.

Produced by Ross Robinson (At The Drive-in, From First To Last,
Sepultura), Redeemer is at once the heaviest and most personal album in
this band¹s arsenal‹and that¹s saying something: With their 2002 Solid
State Records debut, Bless The Martyr And Kiss The Child, Norma Jean
established themselves as one of the noisiest and most adventurous
young bands in metal today. With the 2005 follow-up, O¹ God, The
Aftermath, drummer Daniel Davison, bassist Jake Schultz, and guitarists
Chris Day and Scottie Henry welcomed new vocalist and Arkansas native
Cory Brandan to their lineup and took their artful, technical noise to
the proverbial next level, earning critical acclaim and a 2006 Grammy
nomination (for Asterik Studios’ awe-inspiring artwork) in the process,
and embarking on a grueling tour schedule that has found them on
Ozzfest 2006¹s second stage, as headliners on the sold-out, nationwide
Radio Rebellion Tour with Between the Buried and Me, headlining their
own “Great American Noise Tour” with The Chariot, A Life Once Lost and
The Handshake Murders, and, most recently, as direct support for Thrice
and Underoath on their U.S. tours, a slot on the acclaimed Bamboozle
festival in New Jersey and five days scheduled for the Vans Warped Tour
2007.

And now, with a new, expanded edition of O’God The Aftermath in
stores, the obvious question follows: When you still have past glories
to coast on, why make a new album at all?

“Basically, we had too much material brewing inside us, and we
wanted to get it out,” says Davison, laughing. “We probably could’ve
waited to record until after we cut back on what we had, but when the
opportunity to work with Ross came up, it just felt like, ‘Man, being
in the studio with this guy is something I’ve wanted to do since I was
12 years old; I’m gonna do anything I can to make this happen now.”

After practicing, in Davison’s recollection, “pretty much ever day,
for about 50 days solid,” and going through rigorous pre-production at
home in Atlanta, the band decamped with Robinson to Radio Star Studios
in the tiny mountain town of Weed, California, to start work on
Redeemer. Though some of the songs were still works-in-progress (as
Brandan’s recalls it, “Songs were changing up until 20 minutes before
we tracked them”) the lyrics, again written collaboratively by Brandan,
Henry and Davison, really took shape once the band got into the studio.

“We’d rehearse a song till we felt we had it worked out, and then
we’d bring in Ross and sit down for another hour or two just to discuss
it,” Brandan says. “He had us all in there as a group, talking about
each song—what the lyrics were about, where they came from, what the
song meant to us personally and spiritually. It was really intense; so
much stuff came out during those sessions, and in the end, it was
really unifying for us as a band.”

While rehearsals took place in a beautiful, open-stage environment
inside the studio, tracking itself was another story—all part of the
intense process that would eventually shape the songs. “I tracked my
drums under the stage,” Davison remembers, laughing. “We’d get done
talking about the song, and then we’d head down below the stage into,
like, this little dungeon. It was really small, and the drums were set
up with mikes all over them; there were hot water pipes, ventilation,
everywhere—it was really intense. We could barely stand up because the
ceiling was so low, but Ross was there the whole time, coaching us and
keeping us in that mindset.”

Just one listen to the critically revered Redeemer (rightfully
dubbed “explosive” by Metal Edge and “menacing” by Revolver) confirms
the ferocity of the band’s performances. From the discordant breakdowns
and jarring time changes of “The End Of All Things Will Be Televised”
to the newfound melodic intensity of “Blueprints For Future Homes,” for
which the group crafted a marvelously thrashing video, and “Songs Sound
Much Sadder,” the video for which Norma Jean is about to debut to great
anticipation, the album packs some of Norma Jean’s most unhinged,
soul-baring playing into the span of 11 songs. And though the weird
angles and difficult guitar figures that comprised Aftermath are still
prevalent, that album’s refined, very-much-studio feel has given way to
raw atmospheres in which you can practically see the sweat running onto
the instruments. Brandan, who’s already proved himself a formidable
vocalist, fully comes into his own on Redeemer with a style that veers
between unhinged screaming and down-on-his-knees melodic belting.

As has been the case with Norma Jean’s previous albums, fans will
interpret Redeemer’s title in a number of ways: There’s the obvious
(it’s their shortest album title ever); the semi-obvious (the band
members are Christian; the album’s called Redeemer—you follow?); and
the not-so-obvious (look up “Redeemer” in Webster’s Dictionary for even
more possibilities). All of these, says Davison, are valid readings,
but as before, it’s better just to listen to the whole album before
settling on an opinion about what it all means.

“We just
wanted a title that was short and simple, but also really powerful,”
Davison explains. “‘Redeemer’ was the most powerful word we could think
of, and obviously, for us, being a spiritual band, it takes on special
meaning.” Brandan agrees. “We didn’t call it Redeemer and then try to
make the lyrics work around that [idea],” he says. “There’s some really
personal stuff on this record, and even though I’m seeing in hindsight
that the title ties into some of that, I’ve always thought it’s best
just to let people come up with their own ideas about the songs, rather
than say, ‘This is our concept; this is what the record’s about.”