“I would paint you a picture of the sky on fire, but the colors escape my mind.”
At this point, Of Mice & Men have been around for a while. The California metalcore outfit initially rose to prominence in the MySpace scene in the late 2000s/early 2010s; almost immediately garnering the adoration of metal fans at the time with two stellar back-to-back releases early in their career. I, I’m sure along with many others, would consider those albums (2010’s Of Mice & Men and 2011’s The Flood, particularly the latter,) to be all-time metalcore classics. Ten years, four albums, and a few major vocalist rotations since that point though, and here we are in 2021 with Echo.
The third record fronted by vocalist/bassist Aaron Pauley, who initially joined the group in 2013, first featuring on 2014 smash-hit Restoring Force, Echo sees the metalcore group delving into their roots. It’s no secret that the group deviated from their initial sound a tad over the years, with the aforementioned Restoring Force and its 2016 follow-up Cold World venturing further into a nu-metal inspired sound than the straight-up metalcore of their early years.
Since the ushering in of Pauley as the group’s sole frontman in 2017, though, Of Mice & Men have strived to make an effort to tap into that formative metalcore sound, with 2018’s Defy and 2019’s Earthandsky, yielding… admittedly mixed results. Much of the content on both records struck me as fairly unremarkable, and while I concede that both releases ended up proving fairly popular among the metalcore crowd, something about that material just failed to click with me. So, the question remains, will Echo usher Of Mice & Men into a new golden era, or will the band continue to rest on their laurels, failing to captivate my attention?
The release structure of Echo is perhaps the most pertinent and interesting part of its release. Comprised of three EPs released across 2021, starting with Timeless, followed by Bloom, and ending with Ad Infinitum; the group have been drip-feeding content consistently throughout the year, and it’s been a treat for fans. Each EP, and thus each ‘phase’ of the album, seems to delve into its own (relatively) distinct sound, with each being heavily reminiscent of different periods of the band’s career.
Opening the record, the Timeless EP focuses more on the keen melodicism present in something like Restoring Force. Opener and self-contained title track “Timeless” serves as one of the main highlights across the entire project, featuring easily one of the most infectious choruses that the group have penned in recent years. While that track provides a truly strong opening for the record, however, I feel that following tracks “Obsolete” and “Anchor”, while relatively serviceable metalcore jams, sadly don’t quite match that bar of quality.
Thankfully, the record picks up the pace briefly with the Bloom EP, where the album then begins to hone in on the heavy, chuggy, energetic metalcore one would have come to expect on the band’s first earlier efforts. “Levee” and “Pulling Teeth” showcase some of the outright heaviest material this band has ever written, with the latter of the two seeing Pauley bring out some seriously fierce low growls in its closing moments. These are seriously fun tracks, with some incredibly satisfying chugs from long-time guitarist Alan Ashby laying the foundation for what is, in my eyes, far and away the strongest stretch of Echo, and of the band’s catalogue with Pauley fronting them.
“Mosaic”, clearly after my own heart, opens the Ad Infinitum portion of Echo with a callback to the band’s 2012 classic “The Depths”. With biting guitars and driving drums; the track opens strongly, but I feel fails to maintain that momentum throughout its runtime. Its fairly wordy screamed chorus failed to grab me, and while its herta-laden breakdown is fun, I feel they did the br00tal metalcore thing so much more effectively on the album’s preceding tracks. “Fighting Gravity” pulls it back a tad, opting to briefly strip back the brutality for a much-needed moment of respite. A strong chorus and a great vocal performance from Pauley make for one of the stronger s across Echo, and while it didn’t wow me like some of my favourite cuts thus far, it’s a more than serviceable slice of melodic post-hardcore.
Closing out the main body of the album (clocking in at just nine tracks), album title track “Echo” seeks to pull from the strongest elements of the record, combining the album’s heavier chugs with some lovely ambience and emotionally-driven melodicism in what feels like the album’s true closer. However, in a strange twist, the album actually caps off with a cover of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Helplessly Hoping”. While an admittedly decent cover, led by some very pretty, layered vocals and a nice string arrangement, it’s still a truly odd way to end an album like this. Further, clocking in at just under three minutes, it also feels like quite a fleeting moment on a record of mostly four-plus-minute songs. Truth be told, it feels far more akin to an interlude than a closer, with its preceding track feeling like a much more climactic and appropriate way to end the record in contrast.
Despite the stronger cuts here containing much of the necessary bite and catchy melodicism present in the very best of Of Mice & Men’s back catalogue, I need to address where Echo suffers majorly as a whole: its production. As the group’s first self-produced and home-recorded effort, it’s a valiant and respectable effort to be sure, but many aspects of the album’s mix come across as amateurish. It’s not all bad per se – the guitars largely sound decent, the screamed vocals pierce through and the choruses still land – but the lack of weight in the drums or the bass tone particularly saps much of the energy out of the album’s grittier moments. I feel a second set of ears, and maybe some professional touching-up would’ve done the album wonders here, as the mixing work here keeps the album back from achieving its full potential, even in its best moments.
A collection of both the band’s best and most lacklustre material, Echo is an at-times fun foray into the heavy metalcore stylings of Of Mice & Men’s past. Mired by a weak mix and a general lack of consistent quality, despite some intermittently strong material on display I sadly feel that Echo could have been so much more than it ended up as. A band having the confidence to self-produce a record is a valiant effort in its own right, but I feel that it detriments the band’s sound significantly on Echo, as Of Mice & Men have historically set a bar of quality in regards to their production. I still feel that Echo, at least in part, contains the band’s strongest material with Pauley fronting the group thus far, but my issues with the project as a whole are too great and too integral for me to ignore. If you were a fan of the band’s last two efforts, you’ll definitely find something to sink your teeth into, but for me Echo as an album is largely a miss.
Echo will be available next Friday, December 3rd via Sharptone Records, and you can find pre-orders here.
5.5/10