The Singles Jukebox

We will name him George, and hug him, and pet him, and squeeze him…

[Video][Website]
[6.29]

Brad Shoup: I was hanging at a friend’s house yesterday evening, and we got to talking about the disappearance of sweaty alt-rock/grunge from the cultural consciousness. My host did some time in the Midwest emo/indie scene before the turn of the century, and still it didn’t occur to me to talk about the undercurrent of pop-punk, punk rock, and hardcore that outlasted its lauded big brother. “Bones Exposed” has the hammer-ons and the harmonics, the scorched-earth approach to breakups and vocal cords. It nods to the clatter of death metal. Austin Carlile leans on his heels for a half-time pop-style chorus. There’s even a crappy orchestral imitation that cheaper bands will deign to. It’s still remarkably twerpy, though, like a meathead with a baby face.
[7]

Megan Harrington: It’s my opinion that when rock returns to the mainstream it will be in the form of metal. These riffs are standard issue, the opening chord progression particularly could come from any of Pearl Jam’s more hard rock tracks (though I am thinking of “Blood,” specifically) and the straight-sung chorus is trademark Linkin Park. That leaves the double-time drums and the scream-sung verses as the only acquired tastes and they might hold increasing appeal for the character central to one sort of Great American Novel.
[7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Once upon a time, crossover thrash and hardcore became sharper edged and more attuned to metallic sensibilities. By the late noughties, the atonal cross-genre meddling from bands like Integrity and Shai Hulud led to a rediscovery of melodic Swedish death metal, and melodic metalcore became A Thing. Metal Hammer coined a term for the most commercially successful acts playing this strain of metalcore: the New Wave of American Heavy Metal. (Before you ask, metalcore is a separate thing from melodic hardcore, and yes it’s always been this confusing.) By the end of the noughties, the melodic chorus/Eurometal riff/open-string breakdown formula was running dry, and the shakily-assembled musical movement had witnessed its commercial peak. Of Mice & Men are a throwback to the mid-noughties metalcore bands that kept labels like Ferret and Solid State flush in zip-up hoodie revenue: paint-by-numbers, no surprises, a systematic mosh device. We’ve been here before. That’s okay — everyone needs their soundtrack to punching walls. It’s a shame that it’s just so boring.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Hardcore taught me to love screaming and Flocka taught me to love a big dumb riff, and “Bones Exposed” is proper fuck-the-club-up music. This is pretty new for me; I read Steinbeck as a teenager, which means I preferred Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness to The Great Southern Trendkill. (That’s one way to narrativize it, anyway.) Thank god I’m an adult now and can understand how much fun tantrums are. Still, I remember my days as a punk kid, and those great scene godfathers Blink-182 always made such fun of the heavy-metallers. Maybe that’s why I’d like this even more if it were thirty seconds shorter.
[7]

Anthony Easton: I love how expansive and aggressive this is. Though there is a small amount of melodic vocals, the guitars just incinerate it. Actually, a little worried about his voice with the scream/growl. 
[8]

Josh Langhoff: “A CUT CANNOT HEAL UNLESS YOU LEAVE IT ALONE!!!!” We need more momcore! Just imagine the extreme renditions of “YOUR FACE WILL FREEZE LIKE THAT!!!!” or “MY EARS CAN’T HEAR THAT WHINY VOICE!!!!” The latter unfortunately proves untrue during the chorus of “Bones Exposed,” in which Man reflects passive-aggressively on broken-togetherness, almost like Casting Crowns’ more sincere take in “Broken Together.” (OMAM seems like one of those bands that aren’t Christian but lots of people wonder whether they are.) Nice procession of riffs, and I like how Mouse keeps roaring behind Man’s caterwauling, but ultimately THIS IS NOT REALLY SOMETHING I NEED TO HEAR AGAIN!!!!
[5]

Alfred Soto: It stutters and sputters and spits and starts at key moments, the guitars kamikazing off the vocalist’s cliff. When it ended, I wasn’t sure what I’d heard.
[6]