In Praise Of... Polar Similar by Norma Jean

Norma Jean are, in my eyes, one of the greatest metalcore groups of all time, and that’s not an unpopular opinion by any stretch of the imagination. Their early output, in particular, is generally considered some of the best to come out of the early 2000s post-Botch wave of mathcore and metalcore. Albums like Redeemer, O God, The Aftermath, and especially Bless the Martyr And Kiss The Child (when the band was fronted by Josh Scogin, of The Chariot and ’68) are regularly upheld as genre-defining classics. It seems that in your average conversation about Norma Jean, these same albums will be brought up time and time again. Their later releases, though (from Meridional onwards), rather unfairly don’t seem to get the same level of reverence, and so I’m taking this opportunity to shine a light on my personal favourite – Polar Similar.

Released in 2016, Polar Similar is an absolute beast of a record, and it doesn’t get nearly enough praise considering how good it is. Ultimately, the star of the show here is the production job (done as a collaborative effort between the band themselves and Josh Barber) which adds about 10 tonnes to every single element. The drums are punchy, the bass tone is absolutely crushing, and the guitars are just perfectly wild. On tracks like Death Is a Living Partner, where everything fires on all cylinders, it feels like the aural equivalent to being trampled by a herd of buffalo, and it’s outstanding.

All this, and I haven’t mentioned the man at the eye of the storm: frontman Cory Brandan, who easily gives the performance of his career, as well as, honestly, one of my all-time favourite vocal performances on an album. His screams are at once emotive, brutal, technically sound, and stirring. The takes on 1,000,000 Watts and Synthetic Sun are some of the most powerful harsh vocals I’ve ever heard, and he utterly dominates each song, driving them forward like someone at the controls of a runaway train. His grasp on a hook isn’t lost on the record, either – far from it. Some of the cleaner lines on a song like Everyone Talking Over Everyone Else are even more notable than their screamed counterparts, especially with the subject matter of the track, which concerns an abusive relationship Brandan was once a part of. The darkness of the lyricism carries over onto the rest of Polar Similar, and thus the tone of the whole thing turns sinister, and almost dreadful at times.

The album is also one of the band’s most ambitious projects, clocking in at just under an hour and utilising instrumental breaks in a way that they hadn’t previously attempted. It concludes, as most Norma Jean records do, with a 10-minute-long epic (in the form of IV: The Nexus). What sets it apart from the others, from Disconnecktie to Innocent Bystanders United, is that it is simply the most effective of the band’s “long songs”, and by quite a distance: the use of structure and progression is next level; the melodic through-line is compelling; the middle-eight breakdown is as hefty as anything else on the album. It’s simply a perfect way to end a near-perfect LP.