Of Mice & Men released Another Miracle on November 14, 2025. Their ninth studio album and first for Century Media Records kept the recording process within the band: the four members wrote, engineered and produced it, with vocalist and bassist Aaron Pauley also handling the mix and master. One of its defining decisions was to develop a song drummer Valentino Arteaga initially doubted belonged on an Of Mice & Men record.
That song was “Wake Up.” In a Full Metal Jackie interview published by Loudwire in January 2026, Pauley explained that the band collected individual ideas in Dropbox and listened together over Zoom. Arteaga had submitted a brief instrumental built around a verse and chorus, but wasn’t convinced it suited the group. Pauley heard the alternative rock and shoegaze influences he loved and asked for the separate audio tracks so they could finish it. “I was like pretty adamant about wanting to use it and figure it out,” he said.
When “Wake Up” accompanied the album announcement in July 2025, the band described wanting to combine the delicate textures of 1990s alternative acoustic music with their heavier approach. They framed the lyric as an appeal to stay aware of the present, expressed through dreamlike imagery. The song made room for those influences within a record they were shaping themselves.
That freedom had developed over several albums. In an interview published by Mixdown in November 2025, Pauley traced their self-production to Echo, made during the COVID-19 lockdowns and released in 2021. They continued with Tether in 2023, then Another Miracle, making this their third self-produced album. What began as a practical response to shutdowns had become their preferred way of working.
The arrangement also left them responsible for calling a song finished. Pauley said earlier producers had taught them about time management, and that deadlines remained necessary even when the band controlled the work. He had learned that spending hours on tiny EQ changes could exhaust him without making a difference listeners would notice. “You have to intervene on behalf of yourself,” he told the magazine. Creative control came with the job of knowing when to step away.
The writing itself was changing with Pauley’s life. In his track-by-track commentary for Apple Music, he recalled writing “Hourglass” before learning he would become a father, when he was wrestling with burnout and his place in the world. “Safe and Sound” came after he and his wife learned they were expecting their first child. He pictured a soul moving from something limitless into a fragile human body. He wrote the song for his daughter, exploring the desire to protect a child while knowing no parent can guarantee safety. Those songs captured a shift from questioning his own direction to imagining the life he wanted for his daughter.
“Infinite” provided the ending, even though its instrumental was among the first pieces written for the album. It became the final track opposite opener “A Waltz,” the two songs Pauley regarded as the record’s bookends.
