Review Summary: seven thousand singles for what?
Imagine you’re an Of Mice & Men fan in 2021. Shh, I know, but just do it. Okay, great, so you thoroughly enjoyed the two EPs the band put out this year, right?
Timeless and
Bloom were fun little three-track projects that showcased a continuation of the band’s more straightforwardly decent metalcore of recent projects. Cool, that ‘Mosaic’ single they released afterwards was enjoyable as well. But, holy hecking heck, OM&M announced a new full length album alongside the release of yet another new single?!
Echo would come out in early December - greatest year ever, no?
Eh, yeah, no.
Echo features ten tracks: six from the aforementioned EPs, the two singles and, of course, yet another pre-release single for hype’s sake. For those of you who aren’t great at maths, which is pretty likely if you’re still imagining you’re an OM&M fan, this means that ninety fucking percent of the album was up on streaming services before the actual thing was released. The one remaining song? A Crosby, Stills and Nash cover. Fuck me.
To be fair, I’d be more pissed if OM&M weren’t as consistently
mid as they are. Ever since
yikes: personified Austin Carlile left the band, the band has delivered approximately no surprises. However, on
Echo, the metalcore fast food™ sounds tighter than ever: riffs bleed into breakdowns, breakdowns bleed into big choruses, big choruses bleed into riffs, you get the drill. Everything is incredibly cookie cutter and one-dimensional - seriously, did the rhythm section just record one track the band then copy-pasted onto every song here? - but, thanks to the punchy production, sounds just fine. There’s some hints of progression on the more atmospheric ‘Fighting Gravity’, but unless OM&M get drastically better at songwriting, there is really no chance or need for the band to advance. If
Echo can serve its purpose as an introduction to
hevvy stuff for young music fans the same way
The Flood opened up a brand new world for me about a decade ago, the accessible blandness can be deemed an important aspect of the band’s sound. I’ll even accept the absolutely headache-inducing release campaign: OM&M clearly aren’t destined to make anything but mildly enjoyable music, so why not try to reach as many people as possible in the process?
