Of Mice & Men
Ink blot tests and Whang Chung slaps! This week's guest on Discover New Music is Aaron Pauley from Of Mice & Men discussing the band's new album "Tether". The band's eight studio album finds us, according to Aaron, with a much more confident Of Mice & Men. Not only are all the tracks written and recorded by the band, the album is self-produced and even the artwork was handled by them. Plus, Aaron plays a round of Rapid Fire with melted Flintstone Push-Pops, Bigfoot & more!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdN88l0E0Ro
Few hard rock albums are as intimate as the modern output from OF MICE & MEN. Their songs pack the kind of rhythmic punch and anthemic bombast that thrills festival crowds, plus the confessional lyrics, and haunting melodies are the heart of what they do. Taking all creative matters into their own hands, the Southern California quartet self-produced and engineered all of the songs on Tether, their astonishing eighth album. Frontman Aaron Pauley mixed and mastered the album while Drummer Valentino Arteaga designed and painted the album’s artwork. As a legion of devoted listeners worldwide has come to expect, guitarists Phil Manansala and Alan Ashby, Aaron, and Tino poured their hearts and souls into every note, creating another sonic document of their lives.
“With this one, we weren’t really focused on how it sounded as much as we focused on how it felt,” Pauley explains. “And that’s a weird thing to do when all you’re working with is sound. But that was really the goal. And we walked away from making it, feeling like we’ve accomplished that.”
OM&M take sobering looks at depression, anxiety, loneliness, and existential dread, powering through the darkness, and emphasizing the importance of creativity as a balm for mental health. A commanding tempest of sounds coalesces within Of Mice & Men, blending the uplifting eloquence of modern active rock with the atmospheric dissonance of experimental post-rock. The band first emerged as part of a vanguard of future aggressive rock hitmakers. Over the years, they’ve distinguished themselves with musicality, creative ambition, and resilient determination.
When we last heard from the band, they released a diverse trio of EPs that followed, collected as Echo in 2021. OM&M wrote that, Echo “covers life and impermanence, love and the infinite – how the most wonderful and most tragic parts of the human experience deeply intertwine.”
Album #8 is no less ambitious. Tether is anchored by a reflective meditation on what it means to draw together as friends, family men, artists, and bandmates. What does it mean to be there for the people who depend on us, knowing we can’t fully protect them from the hardships of life?
Tether is the next step in OM&M’s evolution, combining their core sound with experimental and ethereal sound designs. The creative process focused on the excitement of discovery rather than preconceived “goals.” Pursuing the moments when the elusive “x factor” reveals itself in the songs. Those moments are palpable in songs like the album’s new radio single, “Castaway”.
“Emotions and feelings are fleeting and change. Things that excite you one day don’t always excite you the next,” Pauley says. “For us, it was so much about continuously and endlessly chasing a feeling. Not only do we feel like it produces an album we can be proud of that will resonate with our fans, but there’s something deeply human about chasing the excitement in the process. As they say, ‘The man who loves walking will go further than the man who loves the destination.’”
The Of Mice & Men core since 2016 – Aaron, Alan, Tino, and Phil – maintain a powerful bond with their audience and each other, no matter the obstacles. Whether a powerful anthem or atmospheric confession, their songs translate in intimate clubs and massive festivals. “It’s about creating moments for people,” Pauley says. “Music is the soundtrack to people’s lives.”
Code Orange
It's nice to have Billy Corgan on your record! This week's guest for Discover New Music is Jami Morgan of Code Orange here to discuss the band's new album "The Above". Jami talks about the band's decision to self-produce their fifth record and what it was like working with the Smashing Pumpkins frontman. Plus, is Jami a bigfoot believer? We found out that and more in a round of Rapid Fire!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJs2jqym09A&t=4s
After spending years festering in the dark, Code Orange are embracing the light.
The Pittsburgh metal band comprised of vocalist Jami Morgan, lead guitarist and singer Reba Meyers, guitarist Dominic Landolina, programmer/guitarist Eric “Shade” Balderose, bassist Joe Goldman and drummer Max Portnoy have taken their hardcore roots to infect rock music’s DNA with futurist instrumentation, bloody live shows and a desire to bring a new era of heavy music to the masses. Since Forming in 2008 while members were still in high school, the group helped open the door for aggressive hardcore to succeed on a larger level. Their drive and determination have earned them two Grammy Nominations for Best Metal Performance in 2017 and 2020,acclaim from publications including The New York Times, NPR, Revolver Magazine, The Guardian, The Independent, and appearances at music festivals like Coachella.
The COVID pandemic upended Code Orange’s coronation as metal’s new titans, as the world went into lockdown the week they unleashed their album Underneath .Not ones to sit and wait, the band immediately went to work on developing and executing live broadcasts that set the tone for what bands should do during the pandemic. After their final livestream Back Inside the Glass, Code Orange began writing what would become their new album The Above. Morgan conceptualized the record in a multitude of stages, filling stacks of composition notebooks with ideas on where to take the band next. It’s a process closer to worldbuilding in film than simply demoing an album, as he constructed physical mood boards and collages to visually define the record’s creative direction.
“It started at this point of thinking about what world this album would inhabit,” Morgan says on envisioning the album’s concept. “That kind of opened my mind to the different ways we could go musically. We took things in a brighter direction at times, and thematically it led to something way more personal."
If the band’s previous Forever targeted upending hardcore and Underneath took aim at modern metal, The Above Germinates rock music into a new organism. Produced by Morgan and Balderose and tracked by punk icon Steve Albini at the legendary Electrical Audio, The Above Is a sonic odyssey that takes listeners on a ride out of machine hell and into a vibrant utopia. Code Orange find joy in crafting ultra-catchy hooks while never sacrificing their attention to detail in textural heaviness. Lead single “Take Shape” shows the group transform industrial machinations into soaring choruses, punctuated by a guest vocal appearance by Smashing Pumpkins mastermind Billy Corgan.
“Billy saw something in us, which we really appreciated,” Morgan says. “It was a very inspirational experience for us because he's such a legend and definitely a big influence on us. I don't feel like anyone's really utilized him in a cool feature like this in a long time. We were able to build something around him that portrays him for what he is which is a big-time legend and star. I wanted to make sure the song sounded like it was shining down upon him, and everything goes dark after.”
All of these new ideas coalesce on “Circle Through,” which stands as a platonic ideal of what a great, catchy hard rock song should sound like. Morgan and Myers find their greatest harmony as vocalists, as both trade off vocals on its explosive chorus. “Mirror” is a showcase for Myers’ enormous range as a singer, as the song flirts with 808s and moments of trip-hop for an arresting experience. The track’s shimmering, naturalistic melodies come back to attack the listener, recontextualized as a truly vicious riff in the following song “A Drone Opting Out of the Hive.”
Those moments of earthy beauty often mask a horror lurking beneath. Morgan alludes to the lifecycle of parasites as inspiration for much of the record. “I was thinking a lot about light as a concept,” Morgan says. “I was reading a book about parasites and how they attach themselves to hosts and force them up from underground into the light, where they can be consumed by other creatures, and the lifecycle goes on.” It’s a metaphor that plays out through much of the album, the moments of serenity and lightness on “Theatre of Cruelty” are genuinely beautiful after the discordant opening of “Never Far Apart.” But It's a beauty camouflaging a savage underbelly of darkness, as the band cuts through those moments with terror and heaviness.
The Above is a do-or-die record for the band, as a group they take their biggest swing yet, pushing their talents to their creative brink. The album morphs between genres and ideas with ease, the song “Snapshot” starts with dancey 80s synthpop production before sending listeners on an acid trip of a chorus. Elsewhere, “But a Dream...” is pure hardcore power-balladry, Reba Myers desperately singing the words “Free will is nothing but a dream” before the band slams into a metallic breakdown. “It's just what we feel needs to exist out there,” Morgan says. “We’re not hiding on this album. It really is just who we are and what we wanted to make. I don't think there's an album that this record sounds like, which was the goal."
Code Orange is far past the point of caring about what scenes will accept them or what genre boxes they stick. The Above is a sonic testament to the force of nature they’ve become, expanding their web of sound further than anything they’ve done previously. Destruction isn’t the endpoint, but rather a necessary razing of preconceived notions in order to plant new ideas. For those that decide to come along for the ride, The Above is a 14-track portal into the exuberant thrills rock music still summons. The herd has been thinned, and now it’s time to start life anew.
Baroness
Back alley deals on equipment is a cost effective way to make a record. This week's guest on Discover New Music is John Beizley of Baroness here to talk about the band's sixth album "Stone". After two and a half years, some writer's block and a whole lot of touring, John says that the band found exactly what they were looking for in this new album. Plus, John talks about painting the album's artwork and how he finds joy on the canvas and in the studio. Plus a quick round of Rapid Fire is played and it's revealed that he just wants to see 100 duck sized horses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nc3Crrb1pE
In This Moment
Can we get Chris in a goose suit? This week's guests on Discover New Music are Chris Howorth and Maria Brink of In This Moment talking about their new album "Godmode." With more time to write and less hectic recording schedule, Maria and Chris agree that this album is reminiscent to "Blood" and is some of the heaviest and most innovative music the band has put out. Plus we talk covering Bjork and play a quick round of Rapid Fire!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soVg7yjNG5s&authuser=0
In This Moment is:
Maria Brink (lead vocals), Chris Howorth (guitars), Travis Johnson (bass), Randy Weitzel (rhythm guitar), Kent Diimmel (drums)
About In This Moment
Since coming to life in 2005, In This Moment have presided over a diehard fan base under the watch of “mother” figure and frontwoman Maria Brink—joined by co-founder and lead guitarist Chris Howorth, bassist Travis Johnson, guitarist Randy Weitzel, and Kent Diimmel. As millions convened upon the group’s otherworldly and unforgettable concerts, they quietly emerged as one of the most influential and impactful bands of the 21st century that has amassed over 1.3 billion cumulative streams to date.
In addition to the Gold-selling album, Blood [2012], the quintet have garnered six Gold and Platinum singles, followed by a trifecta of Top 25 entries on the Billboard Top 200 with Black Widow [2014] and Ritual [2017]. With a stream tally well past 250 million, Ritual elevated the group to new creative and critical peaks as well.
Between selling out headline tours coast-to-coast, the group performed in arenas everywhere alongside Disturbed and appeared at countless festivals from Rockville to Sonic Temple.
Along the way, they assembled their seventh full-length, the aptly titled Mother [Roadrunner Records] with longtime trusted collaborator Kevin Churko [Ozzy Osbourne, Five Finger Death Punch]. Whereas Ritual hinted at a bluesy sonic sorcery, Mother breathes the activating mantra of an unbreakable spell, commenced on the GRAMMY® Award-nominated lead single “The In-Between.”
In 2022, the band released Blood 1983 [BMG], a reimagined EP commemorating the ten-year anniversary of Blood, and most recently had their song “I Would Die For You” appear on the soundtrack for John Wick: Chapter 4.
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