Review Summary: Metalcore comfort food that will please most if not all fans despite not doing a whole lot differently and carrying the same problems.
The Devil Wears Prada tend to be more of a controversial band in the realm of Metalcore. Personally, I tend to gravitate more towards the middle with them. I absolutely love classic songs like ‘Danger: Wildman’ or their cover of the hip-hop song ‘Still Fly’, but the messy style of their first 2 albums are very much not for me. That said, this band took a serious turn with their 2009 release, ‘With Roots Above and Branches Below’, and continued that with the 2010 ‘Zombie’ EP. These two releases got me personally pretty excited for what their next album would sound like when I was listening to their whole discography way back when. So, enter ‘Dead Throne’.
I’d start off by saying that this album does combine a lot of the best aspects of those previous releases, but also still carries some of their issues, more on that later. I’ve heard people describe this as their heaviest album (Post-Plagues anyway) and I guess that’s fair enough. It’s certainly got some absolute crashers in here like those first two tracks, namesake ‘Dead Throne’ and ‘Untidaled’. Both tracks are mostly screamed, with only a melodic section in the sophomore track’s bridge. They’re both solid enough songs, though I’m not sure I’d call either of them great. They tend to fall into the same old tropes of a generic TDWP song, but I guess they at least embraced it.
Single ‘Mammoth’ begins to take things in a different direction. This song is really weird, but in a good way. There’s a lot of tempo and time signature changes that work really well. I think the best part is in that pre-chorus where Mike Hranica is screaming “I never meant to hurt anyone”. His screams on this album range from some of his best to also some of his most ear-grating, but he’s doing a great job on this track. It’s a standout.
‘Vengeance’ is more of a formulaic structured TDWP song in the style of something like ‘Danger: Wildman’. It’s a really good song actually, I’m not sure it does a lot to stand out. The second single ‘R.I.T.’ comes after it, and akin to those first 2 songs, it’s just kind of another heavy TDWP song, but it’s got some great music and even better screams, which make it pretty solid, even if not a favorite of mine.
What is a favorite of mine though is this next kickass song. The fact that ‘R.I.T.’ got to be a single over the awesome album cut ‘My Questions’ is a bit baffling. The music of this song is masterfully done, and the way it starts is honestly quite pretty to me. The chorus is a classic TDWP melodic section that you really can’t go wrong with. This is a massively underrated song that deserves any TDWP fan’s attention, which it sadly rarely gets.
A pretty kickass instrumental interlude in the form of ‘Kansas’ leads into what is hands down my favorite song of this band’s career. Lead single ‘Born to Lose’ kicks absolute ass and you can’t tell me otherwise. Aggressive lyrics that take a stance against false idols are screamed out, as killer guitars light the whole song up. I’d say similar things to its chorus as I would about ‘My Questions’, but it's made even more awesome since it picks up in tempo a tiny bit and soars with an epic backing instrumental and vocal performance from Jeremy DePoyster. This is a masterful song, and is exactly what I like to hear from these guys.
Sadly the next two tracks ‘Forever Decay’ and ‘Chicago’ are very disappointing. They fall into the same generic tropes for a TDWP song. I appreciate the emotional background of ‘Chicago’, but musically it does little for me, and I just find ‘Forever Decay’ to be severely forgettable.
‘Constance’ picks up though with a feature from As I Lay Dying vocalist, Tim Lambesis. His feature doesn’t really do much for me, as I don’t follow his band, but I do like this song. Its structured similarly to songs like ‘Vengeance’ and ‘My Questions’, though its spaced well in the album so as to not make it monotonous. Another solid song, though its follow up ‘Pretenders’ is just okay. It follows a similar structure, but something about it just feels very off to me, and I can’t quite put my finger on what that is. Not a bad song, but not a standout.
The closing track then storms in. ‘Holdfast’ is a great way to end this record off. It’s heavy as balls at points but also contains melodic sections, even though the structure is a slight bit off. The way this song ends with the repeated screams of ‘Save Me’ is a really great way to end off this record, as is the whole song. It’s a great song and another standout.
That is ‘Dead Throne’ as a whole. I was pretty pleasantly surprised when I first heard it. Yes, the issues of songwriting that is both too repetitive and too messy does kind of remain here, but the strengths do outweigh that. Generally the more post-hardcore-ish songs here are the ones that I like the most, but some of these heavier songs are still good, if not a little boring after a while.
It may not be a flawless metalcore record but it’s good enough for someone to enjoy rather thoroughly, if only for the best songs. In terms of their own discography i do prefer ‘Roots Above’ and probably ‘8:18’ as well, but ‘Dead Throne’ is still up there.
Standouts: Born to Lose, My Questions, Mammoth, Constance, Holdfast, Vengeance
