By Jase Walker
Okay so I won’t lie, I feel like I’ve had a somewhat difficult relationship with Of Mice & Men since their rather infamous split with Austin and the subsequent fall out from that. Not that I specifically want to draw attention to that but their material since has often been quite hit and miss at times because it always felt like the band were pulling in different directions with some songs feeling like they wanted to potentially replicate Wage War and others with more pop-based core such as Caskets or more recent Bad Omens.
Anyway with that out the way, I really cannot overstate how much ‘Another Miracle’ has made me go “fuck me!” throughout listening to it for the first few times.
Of Mice & Men have returned with a new album for 2025 and it is furious, it’s absolutely brimming with incredible anger and the band truly feels like a properly united force with a proper direction. I love this band, I really do, but there’s been some hiccups here and there and the odd misstep that seemed to have done themselves a disservice considering how fantastic this band is and how much potential they have to really go for the big time.
I mean the album opens with ‘A Waltz’ and ‘Trouble Water’ and this one-two punch combo of opening tracks really shows that these guys are done fucking around and it’s time for some big riffs and aggression.
This is 12 tracks at just shy of 44 minutes and I legitimately cannot say that any track is worth skipping. The singles already piqued my interest and although nearly half of the album was released as singles in the leadup to its release, I feel like they were keeping some of the best stuff for the album itself. I mean you only need to listen to ‘Hourglass’ to confirm that, another great example of properly aggressive vocals and relentless riffs, there’s little doubt that this sort of stuff is going to bring in people who want to go wild at a live show with little regard for their own safety.
‘Flowers’ is a bit more familiar with their material up until now with the more chilled clean vocal segments but the intensity that the rest of this album is packed with isn’t too far away and shows that it’s very much possible to marry two different sides of Of Mice & Men’s sound and produce something incredible.
The last half of the album is probably the strongest part that eases off a little bit on the aggression in favour of adding more melodic elements and emphasis on clean vocal moments, but this just ends up giving so much more weight to the heavier segments as a result and really finds the right balance. The final three tracks really give this album a fantastic send off, ‘Somewhere in Between’, ‘Swallow’ and ‘Infinite’ feel like a trilogy that is meant to be stuck together next to each other on a prospective live set and wraps up an album that feels like a true strong step forward for Of Mice & Men.
I’m genuinely overjoyed and blown away by how fantastic this album is from the start to the finale. In a time that I thought metalcore as a genre was getting maybe a bit boring for me, Of Mice & Men have reassured me with this album that I just need a solid approach to writing a fucking good riff, righteous fury backing it in the vocals and thunderous drums to drive it.
Outstanding stuff.
- ‘Another Miracle’ is out now.
