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Download Example 1
The Normandy’s neck humbucker, with the Tone full up.
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Download Example 2
The Normandy’s bridge humbucker, with the Tone full up.
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Download Example 3
The Normandy played through a Fulldrive 2 set at medium overdrive
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| All clips recorded with Tone and Volume knobs on guitar full up. Played through a modified Epiphone Valve Jr. with a 12” Eminence Red Fang speaker, and recorded with a Shure SM57 through a ProSonus Audiobox interface. Guitar by Randall Davis.
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When Jim Normandy and his crew arrived
in Nashville this summer for NAMM, they
likely had no clue about the buzz their
guitars would unleash. Normandy’s booth
remained a hot spot the entire weekend,
attracting equal numbers of curious players
and voracious media types. While the
company wasn’t promoting any huge technological
breakthrough, they were offering
attractive guitars built entirely out of
aircraft aluminum (save for a wood neck),
and the fact that they actually sounded
good was enough to arouse the interest
of an industry jaded with “non-traditional”
materials.
After a little pleading, the company
agreed to ship us their top-of-the-line
offering, a chrome archtop, for a run in
the review chamber.
Normandy the Riveter
Made entirely of aluminum and featuring
fat rivets up and down the front and back
of the body, the Normandy looks like a
militarized Gretsch 6120 from most angles,
from its curvaceous singlecut design to the
placement of the controls on its face. While
the chrome version looks especially industrial—
until the fingerprints start—there’s
also a variety of metal flake and powder
coat finishes conjuring up other hard-working
vehicles, like school buses and army
jeeps. Hardware enthusiasts will find a lot
to like on this guitar, as the Normandy
comes decked out in chrome components.
It features two Volume knobs and a Tone
control (all of the dome variety), a pickup
selector on the upper bout, and a heavyduty
kill switch hiding innocently behind a
Bigsby B70 tailpiece. An adjustable locking
roller bridge sits behind two humbuckers,
both of which are made by Normandy,
and are, of course, encased and surrounded
by chrome. It’s truly a sight to behold,
and odds are you’ll spend plenty of time
just looking at the guitar if you add one to
your arsenal.
Of course, there are plenty of eye candy
guitars made out of fancy woods and alternative
materials that sound like shit upon
first strum; Normandy is proud of the fact
that their guitars are made to be played.
The maple neck is made by Warmoth and
features a rosewood fingerboard; it does
the job without being flashy. The neck profile
strikes a balance between fat and thin,
maintaining a well rounded C up and down
the neck—I would have liked a little more
thickness to it, but the Normandy stays
faithfully in vintage archtop territory. The
25.5” scale neck and a 1 11/16” nut width
give you plenty of room to stretch out,
and the medium jumbo frets keep things
modern. Chunky Gotoh tuners with an 18:1
ratio round out the package atop a fairly
nondescript headstock. Fortunately, a cool,
chrome Normandy Guitars emblem gives it
a bit of personality.
Playing the guitar acoustically reveals a surprisingly
clear, snappy tone, akin to an old
resonator sans biscuit, and I found myself
jamming on it many a night without even
having to plug in. It’s comfortable enough
to sit around with, and surprisingly well
balanced, although the aluminum does
tend to start feeling heavy soon enough.
That said, the guitar only clocks in at 8.6
pounds—about the same, if not less, than
an old school LP, so it’s certainly not tipping
the scales, but you’ll want to make sure you
can pull off a set with it, all the same.
Plugging in, I should begin by mentioning
that there are a plethora of great sounds in
this guitar, from dark, jazz tones to bright
pop comping, and I have to tip my hat to
Jim Normandy for creating such a musical
instrument out of a material a lot of us
had written off. The pickups sound warm
and round, and combined with the guitar’s
spectacular clarity, the Normandy covers a
wide swath of ground with very little effort.
But don’t let the archtop or the Bigsby fool
you; this guitar is meant to rock.
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The Normandy loved any and every opportunity
to crunch up, to gang up on an
unsuspecting tube amplifier with a ballsy
overdrive and a heavy touch. I found myself
plugging in all of the fuzzes I had around
the house, just to hear the Normandy in
its element. There’s nearly infinite sustain:
strike a chord and you can ride it well into
next week. At its hardest moments, the
warmth of the pickups and the guitar’s
beefy midrange turn into a weapon, battering
everything in its path. The feedback was
wonderfully controllable; I’ve been already
been banned from playing my (probably
slanderous) rendition of “The Star Spangled
Banner” in my apartment complex.
What makes this guitar perfect for gain is
its edge, this immediacy in the attack of
every note you play. It’s not an offensive
edge or a sharp edge, but a distinctly
metallic one coming from the body. There’s
this biting midrange attack, a powerful
snap over everything, and when it’s fed to
an amplifier on the edge of distortion, the
Normandy begins attacking. It’s something
that you can hear in wood guitars, but the
aluminum brings it front and center, presenting
that midrange proudly and saying,
“Let’s kick some ass!”
The Final Mojo
The Normandy is a solid hunk of aluminum
that sounds like a guitar, plays like a guitar
and looks like a guitar. But honestly, you’ll
either love it or you’ll hate it, and the odds
are that the sound will only be a part of
that decision. There’s a lot of psychology
in an aluminum guitar. As players, we’ve
had the “wood is better” argument ground
into our pores, and Normandy’s all-chrome
approach only serves to highlight that difference.
You can feel vibrations coursing
through the instrument while you play, but
the body remains a little mechanical, a little
cold. The sound bites and snaps. And if
you play with your eyes open, you’ll quickly
find yourself thinking, “This is made out of
the same material as my lawnmower,” and
you’ll think about how much you hate the
sound of your lawnmower and that’ll be it.
It’s easy to talk yourself out of this guitar,
out of even trying it. But if you’re open to
something new, and you like the thought of
saving a tree or two while you’re at it, then
I cannot recommend Normandy enough.
Buy if...
you want a great sounding guitar
that will likely last longer than you.
Skip if...
it’s not made of wood, dammit!
Rating...
