Recently Of Mice & Men, a popular metalcore band from California recently lost one of the members they were most well-known for. Austin Carlile, who was one of the vocalists and was also considered the front man. Before he left the band, he was in and out of the hospital constantly due to heart problems.
This weekend, Of Mice & Men released a new song called ‘Unbreakable’. This song took an unexpected turn, before listening to it I wondered how Of Mice & Men were going to stay true to their title of being a metalcore band because Aaron Pauley, another vocalist only did clean vocals (didn’t scream). The first few seconds of the song foreshadow that there will be unclean vocals somewhere, despite the song starting with Pauley’s vocals. Around a minute into the song, Aaron shows off his ability to do unclean vocals. I was not expect it to happen at all, but when it did I was pleasantly surprised. The first time I saw them live, was when Austin Carlile was still a member, and he did all of the unclean vocals. So naturally, hearing another person doing unclean vocals shocked me.
Despite the initial shock, the song pleasantly surprised me. Not only are Pauley’s clean vocals amazing (as always), but his unclean vocals are also really good, and succeeded my expectations. The overall message of this song is that people can try to push you down, but you’re strong enough to rise above what’s happening and still succeed. If you like the old Of Mice & Men, I promise you’ll definitely like the re-invention.
