Of Mice and Men (metal band): A little corny for me, but has great riffs

Once again, this spawned from the fact that I was out of fresh metal and pulled up a youtube about best metal songs etc. I think it was for 2018 and Of Mice and Men came up on the playlist. Like most of the stuff on there, since I am old-school, I had never heard of them. The song that was featured was "Unbreakable" off the "Defy" album. I kinda liked it, and kinda didn't.

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They are classified as metalcore, and as a lifelong metal fan I am a little unclear as to what all the subgroups actually mean. I just know that more often than not, I like the genres that have "core" on the end of them. Apparently, these guys have seen a lot of lineup changes over the years and the timeline about who is doing the clean and "unclean" vocals is actually pretty difficult to grasp. I have seen graphs in my finance classes in business school that were less perplexing. I suppose it doesn't matter because I had never heard of them until about a week ago.

I can definitely hear that they are trying to be a lot like LInkin Park in this album, I mean if Chester Bennington wasn't dead, i might assume he started a new project. I am not faulting these guys for pursuing that, obviously it is a system that works. I have read that the "Defy" album is harder than previous projects and I like it for the most part especially the guitar work. Some of it is off-beat and just has a great "catch" if that makes sense to anyone. This is particularly evident in "Unbreakable."

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The part where they kind of lose me is that they are a bit too poppy for me. They are obviously going for the more mainstream appeal and again, from a financial point of view, this is entirely understandable. However, their music at times feels plastic and I can't help but wonder if they guys in the band actually like the music they are making.

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I have met many musicians in the past that don't really like what they are producing but do so out of a realization that if they ever want to make a living they have to adapt to what the record company believes the masses want to hear. This is depressing, but a very true aspect of the music industry. I knew some guys in college that played metal, loved metal, were metal.... but now they are a very famous pop country band. I'm thinking about whether or not I want to call them out. I think I'll refrain from doing so for now because they are making loads of money off a lie and the fans love it.... so be it!

Here is the song that caught my attention.

I suppose the lyrics are a bit to 'uplifting" for me. It is like an inspirational poster but in a metalcore song. "Hang in there buddy!" I love the guitar riffs though, particularly the bridge where there is a moment of off-beat awesomeness that really lured me in. I am sure there is a music-school term for that, but I don't know what it is. Basically, if you like Linkin Park and miss Linkin Park, this might be the right band for you. For me, I have listened to all the tracks on "Defy" and about 4 of them are passable for my ears. However, i realize that I have a very particular taste, as do most metal fans, so it is unfair for me to fault them for the things they do that I don't care for.

rating intentionally withheld