Album Review: ‘Restoring Force’

Punk is dead, but apparently, nu-metal is not. “The Flood” drowned the old, repetitive sound of Of Mice and Men and brought them back to life in their new album, “Restoring Force.”

“Restoring Force” is the metalcore band’s third full-length album, which the band recorded and released after their original vocalist, Shayley Bourget, left the band. Current frontman and lead vocalist Austin Carlile also faced a felonious assault charge between the releases of the two albums.

However, the band survived, albeit with different members and the addition of a softer singing style, and this album takes a chance with a new sound.

The album begins with the track “Public Service Announcement,”which sounds like an unoriginal, screamo-punk song. One version of a catchy but simple, distorted guitar riff and heavy drum beat, which is played in almost every song on the band’s album, starts fast and introduces Carlile’s raspy screaming.

Although the band’s sound has evolved from its first album, its lyrics have not. The songs are filled with repetition of lyrics that seem like they come from an angst-filled teenager, which are a little immature for a band with members who are all way past their teenage years.

The lyrics also don’t completely match up with the fury of the instrumentals, creating a dichotomy between heartbroken and angry.

“You Make Me Sick,” the eighth song on the album, starts off with typical teenage heartbreak lyrics, introduced by Carlile’s angry voice.

“I let you stop, to sit and think of all the times you tried to steal from me/ Spilling from your mouth, I suggest you bind it up and keep it, keep it to yourself.”

Though the lyrics lack depth, the band plays noisy instrumentals and has vocals that overlap each other and can get a little overwhelming to listen to. However, the second song, “Feels Like Forever,” winds down and gives the listener a break from the music’s intensity. The vocals switch between a more guttural singing to a cleaner voice, making it one of the better songs on the album because it is not overshadowed by the drums and guitar.

The album’s third song, “Bones Exposed,” features the most catchy guitar riff of the album, although that’s not saying much. The instrumentals of the entire album are almost indistinguishable from one song to the next, and they meld together in a forty-minute stream of music.

The rest of “Restoring Force,” which includes songs like “You’re Not Alone” and “Space Enough to Grow,” continues to combine trash sounds, nu-metal, screamo and a dash of punk with a softer, more melodic edge.

It is this quality that makes this album much more appealing than their previous albums. It provides a nice break from the severity of the heavy instrumentals and is less headache-inducing than their other albums.

In “Space Enough to Grow,” Aaron Pauley, the group’s new vocalist, shows the band’s progress from a heavier sound towards a softer, lighter sound. The guitar shies away from Of Mice and Men’s typical guitar riff and goes toward a cleaner, reverberated melody.

The new album has the most diverse sounds out of the band’s three albums, and shows the band’s progression towards an evolved mixture of hardcore and smoother melodies with their newly acquired member.

The diversity of music style makes the album more appealing to music fans that don’t listen to nu-metal. Pauley’s vocals also make the band sound less like just another hardcore group and make this album their best yet.

“Restoring Force” shows that after “The Flood,” Of Mice and Men can get past the setbacks and emerge with a new and improved, easy to listen to album that combines the intensity of their old music with the catchy riffs of popular music today.