Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Nora
Label: Trustkill Records
Release: 2003
Nora are synonymous with top-tier metalcore. Their second studio album “Dreamers & Deadmen” is an absolute step up from the band’s debut “Loser’s Intuition” (2001), in every single attribute metalcore demands, and with the new record Nora have grown another notch higher. The album is shorter than a shooting star, but when its motor plow starts tearing up your CD player, your head lights up like you’re watching thousands of shooting stars at once. Or picture this. You’re sitting at home, you pop this CD in the player and slap on your headphones. Next moment you’re lying under the rubble of roof tiles, the whole roof of the house caved in on itself. Hypnotic shredding, the most stunned, inflamed sound metalcore has to offer, driven by a masterfully accentuated intensity of rage, the kind you can actually bring to life in a studio today!!!!
The guys don’t have much to say. Thank God. What would metalcore be if it had a lot to say? So they cranked the guitars to the max, the vocals skin you alive, and the contrast between the poisonously jangling bass, the razor-sharp riff shredding of the guitars and the wildly clattering gallop of the drums is pushed as far as it goes. Instruments wound up to the limit. As far as the studio allows, anyway. The drums carry a proper metallic sound, especially the snare, which delivers the bulk of the drum sound. Vocalist Carl Severson roars like he’s trying to cough up his lungs and every other bit of respiratory equipment that comes with them. Severson’s approach is definitely one of Nora’s biggest draws. The two guitarists add no guitar frills between sections and no solos. Everything is subordinated to the magic of avalanche riffing.
No need to philosophize. The album unleashes massive anger, reflecting a mix of the craziest feedback and experiences that come from expecting actions that only breed disappointment, and that leave you feeling the world around you is mad, or even more than that: that you’re actually the mad one. All of it in the sweetness of acting and pretending and suppressing the truth by the gray mice (the majority). A proper launchpad for the proper nuclear rage that Nora boldly unleash!
In the riffs you can feel clear traces of the standards Pantera brought into thrash. That’s undeniably similar. What sets this band apart is the skill and know-how to effectively unleash extremely brutal force, raging through unbelievable feats of speed in abusing their instruments, while the guys can still masterfully slot in demanding transitions, rhythm changes and mood shifts. So it’s fair to say Nora are practically at the very top of today’s bands shaping the sound and image of metalcore. The songs are short, but there’s more than enough music and message in them to keep the listener hooked.
“Dreamers And Deadmen” is an album that grabs you by the ears in an instant and sucks you in whole, it sounds so real in the fury of its agony. Technically and atmospherically polished to the max. Maximally fluid, yet at the same time it flags up an exceptional command of the instruments and brilliant chemistry between the band members, which shines brightest in the knack for stringing together complex rhythm changes, through dizzying transitional twists, and in the fact that, even amid all that technical complexity, Nora don’t lose their explosively fluid focus for a single moment. It fires on the first ball of primordial eruptive force, in other words, no beating around the bush. Like a viper that just strikes. Feel this primal rage,! Nora are your herald, the mirror of your sins and the most hidden corners of your consciousness, with the craziest sinful authenticity,, that you don’t dare let out into the open. That’s why Nora get angry in your place. Get on your knees, because after the thunder of this album you’ll be bleeding irreversibly from your eardrums for a long time!
Lineup
Carl Severson – vocals
Portland – guitar
Chris Byrnes – guitar
Tim Cuccolo – bass, backing vocals
Chris Ross – drums
Production
Eric Rachel & Nora
Tracklist
1. Goddamn Champion
2. Scars Are Supposed To Last Forever
3. I Should Have Sent Flowers
4. Deadmen
5. Dreamers
6. Two And A Shot Of Jack
7. That’s A Good Looking Machine
8. Nosferatu
9. Quitters
10. Last One For The Money
Album length: 30.45
