Ohio metalcore band THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA is back with their eighth studio album "Color Decay", and it comes promising everything you love about metalcore from fast, crunching riffs, melodic singing layered with screams, and booming bass but made more digestible. Which I'm sure the metal gatekeepers hate, but I actually love as it makes the genre more accessible and open to more fans. It also gives this album incredible variety from start to finish to keep you interested.

"Exhibition" starts this album off with fast paced and catchy sounds you will likely find yourself bobbing your head to. This track is a great mix of clean vocals and loud squeal screams to remind you of the absolute range TDWP is capable of covering overall but also in just a few minutes of a song. While still boosted with blast beats, "Salt" is a softer track that is more poetic, showing us yet another facet of the band that's just as good. Taking no time to introduce yet another sound to the album , "Watchtower" comes blazing in with techy riffs layered with vocals ranging from aggressive to melodic. This formula of eb and flow is heard on "Noise" as well but a bit more guitar forward.

Not only is TDWP great with range of sound, but also range of emotion. The next few tracks ("Broken", "Sacrifice", and "Trapped") all have a certain feel of pain in the vocals that will tear at your heartstrings while still simultaneously balancing the heavy metal sounds of the instrumentals. "Time" is probably the most unexpected track on this album, opening with a nearly poppy intro before slinging you into what might be the heaviest parts of this album and then slipped right back into a somber state. Staying in the slowed realm, "Twenty- Five" is a melancholic, borderline spoken song with visceral vocals layered into slowed drums and keys that if you haven't felt anything from this album yet- welcome to the sadness.

As we near the last trio of the album, atmospheric track "Fire" comes in to offer yet another sound to the album. This track has a pop/punk meets almost EDM or lo-fi type sound while keeping all of the emotions in the vocal presentation. Taking a break from the desolation, "Hallucinate" brings back the violent angst with aggressive riffs, booming bass met with drums and remarkable clean screams. One last tug of emotions, final track "Cancer" is just as bleak in feeling as the title. One last strain of singing gives us the darkest and most (emotionally) heavy moment of the album. The juxtaposition in the instrumental of this song makes it sound catchy and fun, until you hear the lyrics wrapped inside. A deep way to leave you with the album to sit and just think in silence.

Color Decay was a great album that I will absolutely be visiting again. The scope of sounds and deeply emotional lyricism with bursts of heaviness will absolutely keep you intrigued. My one deduction is that mid way through some of the song production feels so similar that they were not as memorable as a lot of other pieces of this album.