When Ohio metalcore crew The Devil Wears Prada burst onto the scene with their debut album 'Roots Above And Branches Below' album they certainly divided opinions in the metal scene. Many criticising the band rightly or wrongly for being just another average metalcore act in a scene containing far too many averages, and the band themselves weren't exactly helping matters with their tongue in cheek repertoire and song titles such as 'I Hate Buffering', 'Don't Dink And Drance' and the appalling 'HTML Rulez Dood' littering the albums that followed. In 2011 the band return with 'Dead Throne', a thankfully far more grown up affair following the critically acclaimed 'Zombie E.P', this is an album that lead vocalist Mike Hranica claimed would be their heaviest to date.

Obviously being a man of his word TDWP have returned with the most aggressive sounding record of their career, a album that at times makes you wonder if they have in fact stopped worshipping him upstairs and converted to the dark side. Seriously though it's great to see a band with a heavier edge, feel comfortable with their faith without having to ram it down our throats with sermon inspired bubblegum anthems like we have had to endure in the past.

The band continues to practice their Christian faith through their lyrics without reverting to the preachy style of old. As I just mentioned though for a Christian band, 'Dead Throne' does have a definite dark feel to it, from the bleak, sombre album sleeve to the album's eerie opener, you could almost be listening to Dimmu Borgir here.  However throughout the thirteen tracks that make up 'Dead Throne', the other thing that is also plainly obvious is that the band have made some serious leaps and bounds musically from their previous works and this may at last find them leaving the sweaty clubs of their past and see them headlining larger venues in their own right some time soon.

Over their four album history vocalist Mike Hranica has improved vastly and his vocal delivery throughout this album is intense, and is perfectly complimented by the clean vocal style of rhythm guitarist Jeremy Depoyster particularly on future crowd pleaser 'Mammoth' an infectious slab of metal that's going to invoke circle pits of the future.  'My Questions' is another great number with that perfect blend of vocal styles cropping up again, and just to prove metal isn't all about the guitars, keyboardist James Baney gets to display his talents on the outlandish number 'R.I.T'.

To prove to the cynics once and for all that they aren't simply a one trick metalcore pony TDWP then deliver 'Kansas' an ambitient, instrumental number to calm proceedings before once again pulverising our minds with 'Born To Lose' and 'Forever Decay'.  You know when you have an album worth celebrating it's good to invite your friends to the party, so step forward As I Lay Dying vocalist Tim Lambesis as he takes on Mike Hranica head to head on the awesome 'Constance'.

Even though I believe the band have made great headway since their previous album, I have to confess to not being a massive fan of the whole metalcore scene.  I fully appreciate what the younger metal fans get out of it as there are many similarities to the old punk and hardcore scenes, it's ferocious, in your face delivery particularly in the live arena in particular strikes a chord with me, but what I find so frustrating about the scene is that the bands sound so similar to one another. I've watched numerous metal bills in recent years that have featured metalcore acts and to be honest it's so difficult to differentiate each act from another. Unlike the music scene I grew up with, whether you were a fan of thrash, punk or glam every genre had that original quality, each band having their own individual style. That's why I believe a band such as Bring Me The Horizon have made the leap into the larger sized venues, because instead of delivering the same format as the rest of the scene they shifted direction, brought in fresh ideas and in doing so delivered two rather cracking albums compared to their run of the mill beginnings which is my one main criticism with 'Dead Throne'. It's simply not breaking that metalcore mold.

Yes, it is a vast improvement on their past albums and they will definitely see an increase in their fan base because of it, it's just that at times the album does appear very samey, following the same tired metalcore formula of sweeping guitars, with screaming/clean vocals added to the mix.

If The Devil Wear Prada keep progressing, bringing something different to the table then they will be onto a sure fire winner in the future. For existing fans of the metalcore scene though this is a band that has already won.

http://tdwpband.com/splash