NORMA JEAN celebrate today’s release of new album, ‘Deathrattle Sing For Me’

Norma Jean, who today release new album, ‘Deathrattle Sing For Me’, have a shared a music video for, ‘A Killing Word’.

“Failure can lead to being done. Old school vibes. The ending of this song is a riff I wrote in 2009,” says Cory Brandan. “Nothing about it is different from when it was written. I tried to use it on many songs since then but it never seemed to work. The main thing I found was that It was less about the riff and more about the double kick part under it. We felt like it was time to pull it out of the vault along with some other ideas. This song has a fairly basic song structure at its core and the bridge was left open until we hit the studio. We just let Jeremy go nuts. He added modular synths and other sounds. – There might be 20 different versions of various parts throughout this track and they’re all completely different songs dating back to 2008-09. So, to me this one is meant for fans of NJ, new and old. We weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel or anything. Just wanted to write a rad song.”

Norma Jean invite an intense level of intimacy on Deathrattle Sing For Me, their ninth full-length.

The group — rounded out by Grayson Stewart [lead guitar], Clay Crenshaw [guitar/bass], Matt Marquez [drums], and Michael Palmquist [guitar/bass] — plunges into unparalleled emotional depths, as if their very existence depended upon the catharsis these 13 tracks promised. “This record was really about banding together,” observes Brandan. “It embodies the camaraderie of our brotherhood in Norma Jean. At the time, we needed something to do, and we wrote these songs for our own souls. The record was necessary to keep me alive in a very literal sense. It’s a deeper place.”

The band unearthed a searing signature style on O’ God, the Aftermath in 2005. They struck up a creative partnership with iconic producer Ross Robinson on the seminal Redeemer [2007] and The Anti Mother [2008]. The latter notably boasted appearances by Chino Moreno of Deftones and Page Hamilton of Helmet.

Following the acclaimed Meridional [2010], Wrongdoers [2013] represented a critical high watermark with a 9-out-of-10 score from Rock Sound and 9-out-of-10 score from Outburn. On the heels of Polar Similar [2016], they reached another level on All Hail [2019]. In a perfect 5-star review, New Noise Magazine raved, “All Hail is yet another momentous accomplishment on their part,” while Kerrang! attested, “All Hail’s ambition and execution is worthy of worship.” Along the way, they toured with everyone from Rob Zombie and Korn to Mastodon, Lamb of God, and more. During 2021, they recorded what would become Deathrattle Sing For Me with longtime collaborator Jeremy SH Griffith. They nodded to inspirations as diverse as Alice In Chains’ Dirt, The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, and the sample-and-riff onslaught of White Zombie’s La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume 1.