Album Review: The Devil Wears Prada-Dead Throne

The Devil Wears Prada have been a guilty pleasure of mine since their inception. A lot of bands that play a similar style of metalcore I am not a fan of, but there has always been an edge to Devil Wears Prada that made them standout from the pack. Their last release, Zombie EP, was their strongest to date. The quality of Zombie EP heightened my anticipation for their next full-length record, Dead Throne.

Dead Throne is the most musically complex The Devil Wears Prada record to date. You can tell this is a band that wanted to mature and take their songwriting to the next level. There are less breakdowns and more of a focus on melody and aggression. Even the clean vocals, which I normally found to be the low point of The Devil Wears Prada, aren't bad here. They have improved so much since their early records where the clean vocals were completely grating and made me want to write off the band entirely. I was really surprised how heavy Dead Throne was for a Devil Wears Prada album. I didn't expect them to release a record heavier then Zombie, but they managed to do that pretty easily.

The problem is there is one big issue with Dead Throne, Mike Hranica. His vocals bring Dead Throne down an astronomical amount. It's kind of strange how the whole band has gotten better on this album, but Hranica's vocals have taken a severe dip in quality. The band creates all this momentum, only to be brought down by lackluster vocals. His main scream is a pretty annoying, high-pitched shriek that began to become obnoxious very early on. Everytime he screams, it just takes away from the music. The biggest mistake The Devil Wears Prada made on Dead Throne was having Tim Lambesis from As I Lay Dying do guest vocals on "Constance". The 20 seconds that Lambesis is on the record he just completely embarrasses Hranica vocally.

Dead Throne is the strongest effort musically from The Devil Wears Prada, but the vocals really take away from the record as a whole. Dead Throne would have been a much stronger record if one of the genre's best vocalists such as Tim Lambesis or Howard Jones of Killswitch Engage did the screaming, but instead it's just a decent effort. The Devil Wears Prada desprately needs a new vocalist. They will be stuck making decent records for the rest of their career if they continue on with Mike Hranica. Dead Throne shows a lot of growth for The Devil Wears Prada, but at the end of the day that growth is brought drown by Mike Hranica's vocals.

3/5 Stars
Standout Tracks
1.Holdfast
2.Constance (ft.Tim Lambesis Of As I Lay Dying)
3.Kansas