Normal Love, Normal Love

Normal Love’s musical lineup is basically your standard rock group, but their music is anything but. On their debut album, Normal Love, they play completely composed music. The music sounds like Ruins playing Anthony Braxton-style jazz or maybe 20th century classical music. It’s a different sound, for sure.

The interesting thing is that despite Normal Love’s rock lineup, the music never really rocks. It’s loud, and they use their instruments in rock fashion, but the music itself doesn’t have much of what you normally think of as “rock” in it — no power chords, no driving drums, no guitar solos.

Aside from “Severe Confection,” the music was written by members of the group. And though each has their own style, the band makes them all sound of a piece. “Severe Confection” and “Hooks” are the most far-out pieces here — “Hooks” sounds like a free-jazz improvisation, while “Severe Confection” uses a similar feel but breaks it up with Ruins-style smashes. “The Signal’s Coming From Pittsburgh…” Parts 1 and 2 are more linear and flow more but are still dissonant. “Ndugo” actually sounds more like classical music than rock, with the band playing pizzicatto-style on their guitar, except that about half-way in, they add loud drums behind it all. Interestingly, the drummer contributes the most melodic piece here, “The Final Sarcophagus of Darkness,” which is the closest thing on the album to regular rock.

The idea behind Normal Love is great — playing composed music on rock instruments is really inspired. In a lot of ways, it’s an extension of the old punk ethos, which shunned any kind of improvisation and placed a premium on loud, edgy sound. It’s the sort of thing the Minutemen might have done if they’d been listening to classical music rather than punk rock. It would be interesting to hear Normal Love play stuff that rocks more conventionally, though. If they’ve gotten this much mileage out of abstract music, they could get just as much out of more structured, melodic music.