Album Name: Dark & Beautiful Secrets Artist: Normandie Philip Beach: Vocals Hakan Almbladh: Guitar Anton Franzon: Drums Released: February 2021 Label: Easy Life Records Rating: 7.5/10
Tracklist
Babylon
Hostage
Jericho
Holy Water
Mission Control
Bury Me Alive
Atmosphere
Thrown in the Gutter
Renegade
Chemicals
Swedish Alt Rock band Normandie's third album "Dark & Beautiful Secrets" sees the band step into a sound that feels a little heavier and more angry than what they have released previously. Comparing this to their 2018 album "White Flag", I can see how much the band have developed in their music and have created an album that suits them perfectly. Alongside the great sound of this piece we also see the band delve into talking about personal struggles such as mental health. I would like to start with my favourite on the album, I have loved this song since it came out as a single last month (as this is written). "Babylon", it is so catchy and the lyrics make it impossible not to sing along. "Down we go, the rabbit hole", a line that will stay stuck in my head for hours after hearing the track. This song has such a fun vibe to it that makes me wanna get up and dance around. The drum beat throughout this song makes it impossible for you to not at least bop your head. "Thrown in the Gutter" is another song that I really enjoyed off of "Dark & Beautiful Secrets". This one to me felt heavier than the others on the album and really caught my attention from when the guitar riff kicked in.
The band stated "(this) was one of the first songs we wrote for the album, so it's been with us for a while now and we absolutely LOVE it." (Normandieofficial Instagram)
As well as being a great song instrumentally "Thrown in the Gutter" is also great lyrically. A song that in my opinion seems to touch upon mental health in the way of lonliness or feeling alone. A song that people can relate to especially in this time. Lastly I want to mention songs such as "Renegade" and "Jericho" which for me had a kind of reminiscent sound to likes of "Bring Me The Horizon". I think instrumentally Normandie match that same stadium filling sound but the big difference between the two bands is that Normandie have a softer feeling to the vocal part for most of the songs but that doesn't mean that "Beach" can't show off his great harsher vocals too. Overall, I really like this album. I think Normandie always create music that is easy to listen to as a rock music fan. There's nothing particularly out of the box or crazy within "Dark & Beautiful Secrets", it's a good album to listen to and enjoy. Also this album lyrically I think is really relevant right now with the state of the world and I could see it being a piece that could help people maybe feel less alone in their struggles.
Listen to "Dark & Beautiful Secrets" here:
Normandie's social media
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