To say that Norma Jean's career has been inconsistent would be an understatement, to say the least. In the space of four album, the Christian metal quintet from Georgia has played progressive technical metal (Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child), spastic mathcore a-la-Dillinger Escape Plan (O God, the Aftermath), melodic metalcore (Redeemer), and whiny, subpar post-hardcore (The Anti Mother). Fans of the band are firmly divided because of their inconsistency, unable to find common ground between the first pair of albums and the second pair. The only way that the band could hope to bridge the divide would be to release an album that musically walked the line between the two extremes of their sound, because releasing another album with a completely different sound would decimate the fanbase even further. Luckily, the band's newest effort, Meridional, manages to balance the band's technical and melodic sides into an album that has something for everybody.
