Like most God-fearing citizens on the world I always thought that Christian metal sucked big hairy baboon balls. The evidence is certainly out there in spades - Stryper (too gay to discuss) and don't even get me started on P.O.D. It's always struck me as an odd phenomenon that most decent, normal seeming music fans have not the faintest qualm about listening to, and in some cases worshipping overtly satanic music from Marilyn Manson to Cradle of Filth. These regular Joes will chuck their head and raise the devil-horned fist like Beavis and Butthead and joyously sing along to lyrics about everything from sacrificing infants to munching on poop - yet the instant anyone has the gall to slip in a Christian Metal CD, dudes will vault all the way from the backmost seat of a Suburban in a blind lunge to eject this offensive shit before even so much as a couple of notes can completely destroy their evening. What's even stranger is that I'm often the guy who makes the crazed leap.

I suppose even the most straight-edged cats are loath to allow God to be messing with good old rock and roll. Years ago I was sitting in a woodshop class when a great debate erupted over the evils of Christian rock, and due to a paranoia brought about by activities I'd rather not disclose, I had this twisted fantasy that God was going to exact his revenge right there and then and I had this crazy fantasy that the tree I had hacked into a crappy-ass birdhouse might suddenly re-animate and violently choke the shit out of me with it's branches of righteous fury. Like a scene out of Carrie I envisioned the whole class being trapped in the shop, while the avenging forces of the forest fed my classmates into the bandsaws, lathes and beltsanders in a frenzy of blood, while we plead pitifully for our lives. Oh God, The Aftermath - or even the Afterbiology for that matter. This might all sound terribly irrelevant and ridiculous, if it were not for the fact that Norma Jean sounds remarkably similar to a horrific woodshop massacre.
Adam Mast told me he wasn't really into Norma Jean and snickered as I bought it. That's okay with me though, I wasn't planning on making fun of him walking around with a fat woodrow rubbing against the U2 tickets in his front pocket, or his endless stories about being a hardcore U2 junkie. Norma Jean trades on the standard issue "run-dun-jun-jun-dun" Quicksand and Coalesce riffs and breakdowns. Oh God, it's pretty horrendous and even heavier than the bible-sized liner note insert that comes free with the purchase of the CD. (Making it quite impossible to ever get the case to shut right, once you open it up).

Oh God the Aftermath piles on plenty of intense fury and the urgency of holy indignation, with occasional breakouts of melodic vocals as heard on "Liarsenic" which is a welcome respite. Bless The Martyr, Kiss The Child, their 2002 debut, was compared to Korn. Which was stupid, they might as well have compared them to Korn flakes. Suffice it to say that Oh God, bears no resemblance to any kind of rap-rock/nu-metal. Yea verily, Norma Jean is just straight-up hard, with lyrics that in some circles, I suppose, pass for genuflection. The song titles "Murderotica," Vertabraille," and "Disconecktie" are witty and intuitive but left me hoping that they didn't stay up all night thinking up cleverly ironic song titles instead of something more productive like dying their hair black and stealing their sister's pants. Oh wait, actually they have naturally creepy dark hair and they don't wear tight-ass pants - that would be pretentious. In the end I was glad that I ignored Adam's comments and bought this album. Whatever your convictions may be concerning Christian metal, trust me, this aint bad. And I still think it is weird that Adam used to be a groupie for that other Christian act - U2.