Blue October is Approaching Normal

Chris. · Mar 17, 2009

01:: Weight of the World
02:: Say It
03:: Dirt Room
04:: Been Down
05:: My Never
06:: Should Be Loved
07:: Kangaroo Cry
08:: Picking Up Pieces
09:: Jump Rope
10:: Blue Skies
11:: Blue Does
12:: The End (on explicit version only)
12:: Graceful Dancing (on clean version only)

Approaching Normal is a journey; a song cycle that begins with “Weight of the World,” a song that made its first appearance as a spoken word poem on the band’s brilliant live CD and DVD “Argue with a Tree.” The new version, fully orchestrated by the band, finds Justin, as himself, at the peak of his youthful destruction. I blackout in the room again, a busted lip and broken skin. I wake up in the bathroom and dare not bother asking why the mirror's cracked and all I see are shards of glass inside of me. There's voices there to dare me, my father's here to scare me.”

“Dirt Room” also marks the point on the album, when the listener is slapped into noticing just how fierce Blue October is as a band. On this song, Jeremy Furstenfeld (drums) and Matt Noveskey (bass) lay down a metallic rhythm that doesn’t quit while C.B. Hudson III adds the guitars that drive the band into altmetal- garage-punk terrain while Justin scream-sings the vivid and graphic storyline. The surprise comes when multi-instrumentalist, Ryan Delahoussaye, kicks it all up with a violin solo that turns the hot up a few degrees more. Throughout the album the musicianship of the band never falters and always amazes…whatever pallet is required…delicate, ethereal, fiery, rollicking, dramatic, you name it and the band always delivers. The centerpiece of the album is “Kangaroo Cry/Picking Up the Pieces.” The two songs cross-faded to tell the story of a soldier’s heart-wrenching goodbye to his girl on the eve of being deployed into active duty and then the how-and-why of the picking up the pieces of their broken life upon his return. “My Never,” is, perhaps, the most anticipated song on the album since it’s introduction last summer during the Stephenie Meyer/Justin Furstenfeld Breaking Dawn Concert tour. Meyer, a Blue October fan and bestselling author of the Twilight saga, surprised Justin when she invited him to join her theater tour and help her introduce the release of the fourth and final book of her uber-popular series.

On the Breaking Dawn stage, Justin sang acoustic versions of his songs and Stephenie would talk about how they roused her writing, "As a writer, I'm always looking for music that can bring out the emotions that I need for the story. While there are many musicians that can recall to me times in the past where I might have felt sadness or rage or infatuation, it's very rare to find a song that can actually put me in that emotion, rather than just reminding me of it. There is empathetic power in Blue October's music--the listener doesn't just sympathize with the feeling of the song, the listener has no choice but to feel the song as if the emotion was his/her own." Says Justin of the experience, “I was taken back by her invitation and I am equally motivated by her writing and her fans. It showed me that you don’t have to be broken to be a Blue October fan.”

Along the Normal journey there are songs that break the Blue October mold. The philosophically happy, “Jumprope” and the lullaby, “Blue Does,” were both written for a new life, Justin’s baby girl. “I don’t want to write sad songs anymore. I am a little older and I have a child and that allows me to see the beauty and the mystery of life. I want to show my fans that it is OK to be happy.” And then, just as everything seems settled into a comfortable suburban life, the Approaching Normal song cycle wraps with a shocker, “The End.” This tale of an unstable man self tortured by jealously is as frightening as any song ever recorded. You won’t find it on the “clean” edit version of the album…it is that scary. “It’s the dark and quiet unexpected stories on this album, the explicit, the raw and, yes, it is the crazy that deserve a home also…I’ve just always been fascinated with what people think they can get away with…what in their brain is making them say ‘that’s OK.’”
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The album comes out next Tuesday, March 24th. I'm pretty excited for it.

The Emptiness Machine · Mar 17, 2009

This is great. I didn't know they were making a new album.

Chris Tucker · Mar 17, 2009

It needs to leak, I've been waiting. lol.

$pvcxGhxztCasey · Mar 18, 2009

It's already leaked, albeit in a shitty quality and has some skips.

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Blue October is Approaching Normal

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The Emptiness Machine Out of the abyss. LPA Über VIP

Chris Tucker Banned

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Blue October is Approaching Normal

Chris. LPA Super Member Über Member

The Emptiness Machine Out of the abyss. LPA Über VIP

Chris Tucker Banned

$pvcxGhxztCasey meanwhile... LPA Addicted VIP

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