by Andrew Auclair ’29 on March 19, 2026
A&E - Music
When people talk about Pierce the Veil’s best work, the album Collide with the Sky (2012) tends to dominate the conversation. Between that career-defining release and their recent comeback album, The Jaws of Life (2023), sits Misadventures (2016), an album that is often overlooked and misunderstood. While it may not reach the dramatic highs of their most iconic record, Misadventures showcases a band experimenting with melody, structure, and emotional tone in ways that make it more cohesive and compelling than it may first appear.
My introduction to Pierce the Veil came through The Jaws of Life, which Apple Music recommended to me shortly after its release. Though I had never listened to the band before, I gave it a chance and quickly found myself replaying a few tracks, including, “Emergency Contact” and “Pass the Nirvana.” While the album didn’t immediately strike me as groundbreaking, it sparked enough interest for me to explore their earlier work. Eventually, my curiosity led me through their discography, where Collide with the Sky stood out to me as their most essential album. Instead of revisiting the obvious fan favorite in this article, I found myself drawn to Misadventures, an album that feels like a bridge between their raw beginnings and their more polished present-day releases.
Released as the band’s fourth studio album, Misadventures leans heavily into fast-paced instrumentals and emotionally charged songwriting. Lyrically, it often circles familiar themes such as yearning, heartbreak, and fractured relationships, which, at least for me, can blur together when listening straight through. As a full album experience, this repetition occasionally weakens its critical impact. However, when the songs are judged individually, their strengths become much clearer. The record is less about lyrical variety and more about mood, energy, and dynamic contrast. The album opens with the track “Dive In,” which immediately sets the tone with a controlled, almost restrained energy before building into a more explosive instrumental break, blending melody and aggression in a way that feels quintessentially Pierce the Veil. As an opener, it establishes both the emotional stakes and the sonic palette of the album. At the other end of the album, “Song for Isabelle” closes the record with a reflective and slightly more hopeful atmosphere. While it follows the band’s established emotional stakes, its final moments feel intentionally mellow, offering a melancholic but satisfying conclusion. Together, these two tracks bookend the album effectively, giving it a sense of purpose from opening to conclusion.
Two of the most divisive tracks among fans—“Floral & Fading” and “Circles”—are among the album’s strongest. Both lean into the band’s emo-pop inspirations, favoring catchy hooks and brighter melodies over relentless heaviness. Their choruses are insanely memorable, and their more accessible sound highlights an important truth about Pierce the Veil. PTV has never been exclusively a heavy metal or screamo band; melody has always been central to their identity. The playful, sometimes juvenile lyrics in these tracks feel purposeful rather than careless. By embracing their pop structure without abandoning emotional intensity, these songs strengthen the band’s range rather than streamline it. On the other end, tracks like “Gold Medal Ribbon” bring back the darker, more aggressive tones long-time fans might expect, while other songs experiment with tempo and tone. The album succeeds in capturing a specific emotional atmosphere about vulnerability, yearning, and youthful emotion. Overall, Misadventures may not be Pierce the Veil’s most iconic release, but it is far from a bad release. It stands as something of a transitional record, one that plays it pretty safe, but subtly also pushes in new directions. Its occasional lyrical redundancy is balanced by strong structural bookends, memorable hooks, and moments of genuine experimentation. For listeners willing to look beyond the big-name albums like Collide with the Sky, Misadventures reveals itself as a solid and often underrated entry in the band’s catalog; an album that deserves more credit than it usually receives.