I was quite excited for The Devil Wears Prada's new album. I thoroughly enjoyed ZII and the singles leading up to Color Decay were extremely promising, even if they were a bit weird. I was also lowkey quite happy to see one of favourite songs of all time from them, Sacrifice, end up on the album even though it came out as a standalone single last year.
I really, really love the overall emo-influenced metalcore sound of Color Decay. It's most prominent in tracks like Salt, Noise and Broken, and there's a decent amount of deviation from that sound in other tracks, but the core essence of this song is undeniably influenced by the sounds of My Chemical Romance, Underoath and other emo bands. Outside of that, there definitely is a more modern tinge to it, with electronics and synths on top of generally better, cleaner mixes that accentuate the vocals a lot more.
There's not as much pure heavy in this album, the closest few to match being Watchtower, Sacrifice and Hallucinate. Some of the songs don't even have conventional breakdowns or any at all, but I love it a lot more that way. It really leans into the genre blend of emo and metalcore and would've been a lot less interesting if they borrowed little of what makes emo, emo.
I have yet to hear any of the rest of their catalogue, so I don't have a clear picture of what their "usual" sound is. Regardless, as a standalone, it has quite solid songwriting, and I especially love the lyrical content and vocal melodies. They really hit the mark when it came to writing hooks that are super catchy, especially on choruses like Salt and Broken.
The experimentation on this album is commendable, and although not the easiest to get used to on the first listen, I actually did find them very interesting after a while. I remember when I first heard Time, the verses felt so weird to me with Mike shifting to and fro from screaming to singing, and I actually didn't like the song at first. After listening to it in the sonic context of the album, it somehow clicked for me and I actually like it a lot now. Twenty-Five and Fire definitely are the bigger culprits here though. Twenty-Five feels like someone decided to turn spoken word poetry into soft metalcore, and it's not bad but it is not the easiest to get into. Fire, on the other hand, is just so soft and mellow compared to the other tracks I would almost say it might as well be a pop song on a calm trap beat. It is a nice song to chill to though.
In general, it's not hard to say it is stylistically completely different from ZII, but how it compares to the rest of their discography, I cannot say. Color Decay is a great listening experience, and I especially love how it ticks both boxes for emo and metalcore quality for me. There's so many awesome things about this album, and even though there aren't much in terms of standout songs that would earn them a super high place in someone's top songs of the year, the album is well done.
Rating: 9/10