The Devil Wears PradaColor Decay

The nature of impermanence demands that life be in a constant state of flux and instability. Music is not impervious to these forces, and The Devil Wears Prada are a fitting reflection of this.

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Emerging from the burgeoning metalcore scene of the early 2000’s, The Devil Wears Prada were one of an innumerable number of bands who jumped onto this hardcore wave and experienced instant success.

But whilst the scene’s early material felt iconic (think Converge’s Jane Doe), the releases quickly started to fatigue, increasingly becoming laced with monotonous breakdowns, overwrought studio production and prosaic lyrical concepts. The overindulgence that had crept into the music was not going to cut it forever, and artists had to either evolve or risk being phased out. When The Devil Wears Prada released With Roots Above And Branches Below, the band defined themselves as an artist that would likely endure. On Color Decay, their story inevitably continues. Surfacing from utter emptiness, Exhibition introduces the record with an imminent sense of feeling ‘close to the edge’, before lead single Salt adeptly pairs its melodies to a backdrop of ethereal studio production.

Color Decay may not characterise a band that is over-exerting itself, but it is certainly not an album that is simply trying to keep pace either. The Devil Wears Prada sound completely unrecognisable from where they began all those years ago; and that’s not necessarily a bad place to be.

The band’s frenetic delivery of Watchtower embodies a distressed emotional state; one that is eloquently elucidated on in follow up track, Noise. Prefacing the harrowing Sacrifice is the painfully sincere Broken, which explores the album’s recurring themes of self-deprecation and hopelessness. Every bit of intensity is squeezed out of the performance on Trapped, and for the first time, Color Decay offers a brief glimmer of hope. The gravity of the instrumentation that emanates on Time contrasts the sparse arrangements of Twenty-Five and Fire, which find their strength through evocative vocal performances. On Hallucinate, the band crafts a wall of sound so dense as to be suffocating, prior to drawing the curtain with Cancer. Centered around a two-note incantation, there is something quite mesmerising about its simplicity. Color Decay may not characterise a band that is over-exerting itself, but it is certainly not an album that is simply trying to keep pace either. The Devil Wears Prada sound completely unrecognisable from where they began all those years ago; and that’s not necessarily a bad place to be.

STANDOUT TRACKS: Salt, Broken, Sacrifice
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