Album Review: The Devil Wears Prada - '8:18'

7 September 2013 | 5:19 am | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

A mature progression for the Ohio five piece.

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The Devil Wears Prada have been a household name in the metalcore scene for the bulk of their seven year career and are without a doubt one of the biggest and most influential bands in the synthcore niche. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that their new helping, '8:18' is one of the most highly anticipated metalcore releases of this year, with expectations to match.

The obvious thing that you notice when the brutal opening track 'Gloom' kicks off is the different approach that Mike Hranica has taken to his vocals on this release. His screams are a lot rawer than previous releases, with a more minimal approach to the production of them, which has led to a more honest, emotional result, which the band will only benefit from. In a similar vein, there has been a strong improvement from clean vocalist Jeremy DePoyster's previous work in comparison to his vocal contributions on '8:18.' His voice is much stronger, more powerful and is showcased beautifully with some fantastic melodies (particularly in tracks like 'Sailor's Prayer,' and 'First Sight').

The band themselves have described the songwriting on the full-length to be more about “Good songs rather than cool parts,” and listening to the album, it's quite easy to see that. While there aren't a great deal of moments where the guys show off some kind of insane virtuosic abilities or anything of that nature, they consistently show off their strength as a unit from start to finish, and it serves them well to do so too. The final outcome being a collection of 13 songs, which are some of the band's best material to date.

While the record maintains a fair bit of diversity between all of its tracks, every song on the album gives a similar vibe, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and binds this album together as a single body of work. Whether it's the knife-point precision of tracks like 'First Sight,' the insanely heavy tracks like 'Martyrs' or 'Gloom,' or the more synth-heavy tracks like 'War,' the band convey a similar feeling through each album, maintaining a pretty high level of interest along the way. At no point however, is '8:18' more gripping than on 'Care More.' The track features a sort of metallic ambience that is created by layer upon layer of digital sounds, creating a song that is somewhat reminiscent of tracks like Oh, Sleeper's 'The Family Ruin,' and is easily the most interesting point of the album.

'8:18' is a very strong release, and is easily the best full length that The Devil Wears Prada have released yet. The album is a much more mature, even 'adult' release for the band, and frankly, can only really help to push them even further than they already are.

  1. Gloom
  2. Rumors
  3. First Sight
  4. War
  5. 8:18
  6. Sailor's Prayer
  7. Care More
  8. Martyrs
  9. Black & Blue
  10. Transgress
  11. Number Eleven
  12. Home For Grave
  13. In Heart