The metalcore giants from the States The Devil Wears Prada have released a new album with the title “Color Decay”. In keeping with the name, the cover is kept simple in black and white and also the sound of the record conveys the usual harsh side of the band paired with catchy melodies and softer tones. “Color Decay” is already the band’s eighth studio album and is definitely a big leap away from their breakthrough album at the time, “With Roots Above & Branches Below”. The sound is different in the meantime and that can be especially well established with this album.
From the past to the present
The Devil Wears Prada have always known how to combine the common hardness of metalcore with synthesizers or other influences. While in the early days of the band this went more in the direction of the origin of metalcore or partly electrocore, the band around frontman Mike Hranica and clean vocalist Jeremy Depoyster has grown older in the meantime and at the latest since their album “The Act”, which was released in 2019, has taken a somewhat calmer and more melodic approach. With the single forerunner “Broken”, for example, TDWP has a current song in its repertoire that reflects the maturity of the band very well – a consistently melodic song with many facets and a lot of guitar volume. While clean vocals used to have a higher pitch, today’s sound invites you to linger and lose yourself in the songs. Jeremy’s voice brings the listener into a controlled space, against which the band’s sonic power bounces from the outside.
Also “Sacrifice”, another single release can be experienced in this way. Shouter Mike Hranica continues to convince with his impressive vocals, which sometimes fragile, sometimes exactly to the point and sometimes with an enormous power just right to complete the songs. The mix of clean and shouts has always been an absolute strength of the band and one of the hallmarks of their genre. Especially on this album is how well the two voices are komibiniert and merge into each other.
Heavy is not equal to heavy
Of course TDWP can continue hard & heavy and makes from now on not only quiet music. With “Watchtower” should have found a new highlight in the live set of the band. Fast drums, hard vocals and catchy breakdowns can be found here and something you would not want to miss on a Prada album.
Overall, however, album is mostly softer and calmer than some predecessors or better put: The boundaries between soft & heavy are on this latest album of the Americans partly so fluid that it is not at all clear where the album is to be classified. If you listen to “Hallucinate”, for example, you get to hear the entire spectrum of the band for 3:33 minutes. Shouts are mixed with quiet parts, cleans are mixed with hard parts.
Grow up
The new album “Color Decay” by The Devil Wears Prada is another step into the adult songwriting of the band and shows once more what the band is capable of. For a long time TDWP is no longer a pure metalcore band, even if they always stay true to their origin in the core. Their sound today is rocking, melancholic, aggressive and sometimes all that in just one song. A multi-faceted band that has proven itself once again.
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