Genre: Pop/Rock
Members: Andrew Osenga (vocals, guitar), Cason Cooley (piano, vocals), B.J. Aberle (bass, vocals), Mark Lockett (guitars, vocals), Mike Taquino (drums, percussion)
For fans of: Travis, U2, Jars of Clay, Sting
Label: Forefront Records

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"Life's a roadtrip," so the advertisements say. And who's to say different? Not The Normals. Four years of criss-crossing the U.S. and Europe, releasing two critically acclaimed albums which generated a pair of Dove Award nominations and a #1 radio hit ("Everything") has convinced the band of that cliché's truth. Somewhere in the midst of the roadtrip, The Normals discovered the truth of another old adage - "There's no place like home."

"When it came time to record a new album we took a month and a half and went away. The one thing that we kept coming back to was the fact that we wanted to be home," explains Andrew Osenga, the band's frontman and primary songsmith. "That's what the record is about, from the first song to the last song. It is undeniable. These are guys who love making music and love each other, but they really just want to be home. They want a place to belong."

The Normals spent that six weeks at the Kingston, New York home/studio of producer Malcolm Burn, jamming, writing, and experimenting with new sounds, new technologies, and new expressions of old truths. The result is their third, and most personal album to date - A Place Where You Belong. A thoughtful blend of eclectic soundscapes, moody guitar riffs, can't-get-it-out-of-your-head melodies, and great rock tunes, A Place Where You Belong is a formidable, eleven-song collection that plumbs the depths of the human experience - Love and loneliness, life and life-everlasting, faith and futility. Each song stands on its own, yet each is inextricably tied to every song on the album. Each is individual, yet bares the indelible imprint of the band.

Osenga states, "I think people will listen to it for years. Our main goal was to make sure that every song sounded different from every other song. If any song sounded like anybody else, we scrapped it. And if it sounded like any song that we had already recorded, we scrapped it. Every song is unique, but very accessible. I think this is the first time we sound like a band - like five guys who couldn't be anybody else."

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