God- or goddess-wise, it's one thing to be Jupiter or Neptune, Thor or Minerva, Odin or Diana ... Those are marquee names in the vast, overlapping cobweb of mythology.

At the same time, the pantheon also includes hundreds of minor and mostly forgotten deities. For example, you're either a classics professor or one of those pagan weirdos if you actually recall obscurities such as Deimos, Váli, Beira, or Norman.

But wait!

Thanks to the efforts of New London rock trio Horns of Ormus, there's at least a resurgence of curiosity about Norman. In fact, the band's latest album is called "Mythical Norman" and, based on the searing, irresistible, 13-song musical onslaught therein, this "Norman" deity wasn't fooling around. He's probably one of those octopus-armed gods, which could explain how Horns of Ormus can so adeptly and gleefully juggle (and synthesize) a variety of genres from punk and prog to hardcore and garage — if, that is, the garage is more like a towering silo housing a Mars-bound rocket.

Hearing "Mythical Norman" once is a giddy trip on one of the devil's amusement park rides. With repeated exposure, though, an array of nuts and bolts, sub-surface architecture, colored smoke and funhouse mirrors in a heady, bubbling saucepan of ideas.

Depending on the listener's points of reference, "Mythical Norman" contains fragmented musical homages to Fishbone; the Ramones; Davids Byrne and Bowie; Hendrix playing surf guitar; Robert Fripp playing Hendrix playing surf guitar; Black Flag; the Residents — all topped with lyrical wordplay that veers from stream-of-conscious cultural observations to Chautauqua tent call-and-response to "Ironweed"-esque Valentine's Day cards.

But the bottom-line coalescence is decidedly all Ormus.

"We'd like listeners to feel a sense of immediacy and vitality when they hear ('Mythical Norman')," says Horns of Ormus bassist/vocalist Greg Wharmby, speaking earlier this week shortly before the band rehearses for an album release party tonight in New London's 33 Golden Street. The recording, out from New London's Telegraph Recordings label, will be available in both vinyl and download formats, and it will hit streaming channels soon.

Guitarist/vocalist Christian Moore and drummer/vocalist Jim Villano round out Horns of Ormus. All three are longtime veterans of the New London music scene; Villano and Wharmby have played together off and (mostly) on for 32 years. (Their earliest band, Live Nude Girls, was featured on both of the renowned "Towers of New London" compilations back in the early-to-mid '80s, a particularly fertile time in the storied local music scene.)

The HOO sense of friendship and camaraderie is another quality that saturates "Mythical Norman," which was recorded in spurts over the last three years at Bonehead Studios in Cheshire. All three Hornists produced the album, with engineering help from Tom Bonehead, and all the songs were collaboratively written.

Usually, a Horns of Ormus song starts with a musical or lyrical concept by Wharmby, who then introduces the material in rehearsal to Villano and Moore. But that "recipe" is a very vague and malleable process.

"There are three people who are contributing equally to the process," Wharmby explains. "The idea is that I'm thinking compositionally, and Jim and Chris are thinking about what their instruments can bring to the process. Maybe that puts me in the crosshairs, but being in this three-piece band with these musicians is ideal. Jim and I are a very tight rhythm section, and we bring a lot of syncopation — which frees Christian to float over it all in pretty magical ways.

"We're not good at jamming, so we do need the foundation of a riff or lyric to serve as a starting point. Then that gets run through the mill and destroyed in the process." He laughs. "But it's a process that we trust, and we've learned to ride with it and enjoy it."

Part of the sorcery of "Mythical Norman" is how well the recording captures the essence of the band. Yes, the music has a feral, driving immediacy that electrifies the punk and hardcore contingencies of their following. But beneath that perceived simplicity is an inventive and fluid complexity that attracts musicians and fans of perhaps more sophisticated genres.

"This was our sophomore effort, and the experience was very different from the (2013) first album. Then, we recorded 12 songs in three hours and, yes, it had a lot of energy," Wharmby remembers. "But it also suffered for the velocity of the process. This time, we went in with a few songs, but we also wrote a lot in the studio. We learned a lot."

For example, the band had puzzled over odd realities such as why a song that kills onstage might not work in the sterile environs of the studio. At the same time, maybe a different tune that, in a nightclub, causes fans to get a beer or take a smoke break, delivers dynamically in recording sessions.

"It was hard. Sometimes there was a lot NOT happening in the studio, and we had to go home and figure out why or why not," Wharmby says. "Sometimes, we'd pull up to the studio, and we'd be sitting in the car in the parking lot, still hashing something out."

Always a fantastic and mesmeric live band, Horns of Ormus are looking forward to presenting the "Norman" songs onstage. In fact, all three members firmly believe that rock 'n' roll is an art form meant to be shared in the fashion that can help provide a thematic and unifying social thread.

"There's a lot of fun and immediacy in a live setting," Wharmby says. "It's about participation, and our goal is to provide a sort of everyman or everywoman availability to the music. There should be an active component to being a listener, and that means there's really no boundary between participation and audience."

In that spirit, there's an almost activist component to Horns of Ormus. Wharmby, who is also a painter going for his PhD in visual arts, says, "We've been doing this a long time. For myself, I keep writing songs or making art, and I don't always know what I'm after or what the point is. But I do feel a kinship with the community, and Jimmy and Chris are a big part of that. These guys are good company; we don't want to sit around and do nothing. The idea is to be around other energized, creative people who want to do something, especially in the world today when there's so much division."

He pauses. "We're not in this to make a living and we don't expect to make a living at it. And because we don't expect that, elements like regret or resentment have never developed. Our goal is to go out in New London and play music and at the same time contribute to the city's social fabric. And have a lot of fun doing it." 

If you go

Who: Horns of Ormus with the Right Offs and Dos Vatos in support 

What: Release party for their new "Mythical Norman" album

When: 10 p.m. Friday

Where: 33 Golden Street, 33 Golden St., New London

How much: $5 cover; "Mythical Norman" available in vinyl ($20) and download ($10, code provided) formats

For more information: (860) 443-1193