The postpostpostposthardcore scene has seen a number of bands with names cribbed from famous books. We've had an Across Five Aprils, and the Devil Wears Prada is still going. Now there's Of Mice & Men, a Southern California quintet whose sound sometimes veers into George's smarts but more often into Lennie's ham-handed brutality.
The band cribs freely from styles codified by a couple of acts that over-21s might remember. There are the proggish tendencies of bands like Coheed and Cambria and the loud-soft-croon-scream tension of late-period From Autumn to Ashes. The band's current crop of fans, though, most likely first listened thanks to its Warped Tour-era pedigree. At the helm is Austin Carlile, a former member of Attack Attack, the band who, for better or worse, invented the nongenre "crabcore." Of Mice & Men largely does away with the squatting posing, though, instead focusing on a sound as hypercharged and caffeinated as the energy drink sponsoring its current headlining tour.
