"I used to believe if I got everything I wanted, I'd finally be happy...
But all of that was just a dream...
and now...
It's over."
It's hard to believe The Devil Wears Prada have been kicking around for 20 years, but here they are, two decades after their inception with Flowers, the band's ninth studio album, released three years after the acclaimed Color Decay.
Following a monumental seven singles, Flowers is finally upon us. Ultimately, I think the fact there were so many to begin with is this album's undoing. It's a sixteen track album with two interludes, each about a minute long, so if you're following along with the singles like I was, you're left with an EP's length of new stuff to dig your teeth into.
You can read our previous coverage of the band's singles here.
Flowers as an album is an introspection. Not only on the band as a whole, but who where they are as people. "All Out", the biggest surprise Flowers presents, mixes stylings of both old and new, providing the heaviest moments on the album. The song dives into the nature of a doomed friendship and how even your closest friend can change into someone you can barely recognize.
"So this is war / My oldest friend"
This intensity is matched by the powerhouse riffs from Kyle Sipress and oh-so-good blast beats from drummer Giuseppe Capolupo that not even Zakk Cervini's lackluster drum mixing can dilute. The band even takes looks back at it's roots in Christianity, and the shift they've made away from it on "Eyes", another of the album's highlights. The track sees vocalist Mike Hranica scream, " Heaven's been cheating the hell of me", on the track's chorus and eventual climax.
“I was raised in a very ordinary Christian home, but we aren’t a Christian band. We’re speaking on the concept.”
- Mike Hranica
Flowers stems from the concept of, first and foremost, according to clean vocalist Jeremy DePoyster, "why you still deal with darkness and demons even after you’ve gotten everything you thought you wanted". The band explores this best on my favorite track on the album , "Wave", it's most somber offering. Compound the slow strings, piano, soft deliveries, and themes of self-destruction and you've got quite the tearjerker for the perfect closer. It even cuts off abruptly, before DePoyster can deliver the final blow.
"Maybe this world's better without-"
That's all well and good, except it's not the album's closer. What follows is "My Paradise", the albums true end point, climaxing with wind instruments and a note of uncertainty as Hranica shouts "Until next time" and DePoyster ponders:
"Maybe this mediocrity is my paradise."
"My Paradise" is still a great track, but I still can't shake the feeling that the two final tracks would do better swapped. I had a similar gripe with Silverstein's Pink Moon, another one of this year's releases.
Flowers is an album with very high highs and incredibly low lows. Tracks like "All Out" show the band at their peak, a band 20 years in, still strong and in their bag. However tracks like "Everybody Knows" just leave a bad taste in the mouth as the band retreats into something I feel as if I've already heard. Lackluster hooks mixed with bored guitars and drums straight from the computer. Metalcore monotony, if you will. Ultimately there is much more good than bad on display and I'm still generally positive on the album as a whole, as mixed of a bag as it is.
The biggest problem Flowers presents is just how much I heard of it before release. Seven singles, no matter the quality, is far too much. It feels as if the band laid all their cards on the table well before the game started. My main gripe isn't a song that felt weaker than the others or that any of them are plain bad, I just would've enjoyed it to a much greater extent had more of it been a surprise.
Flowers is available now via Solid State Records.
