Review Summary: The Devil Wears Prada chose a horrible concert to film their live DVD.
The Devil Wears Prada are a metalcore band from Dayton, Ohio who are very love/hate. Their debut album had some gutteral screams which were abandonded with their second album, Plagues. They stayed with the sound of Plagues up until their Zombie EP which showcased a much heavier side to the band and the result had The Devil Wears Prada finaly at the top of their game. This continued with the excellent album that was Dead Throne and continued to gain new fans while keeping their old fans happy.
With that being said, TDWP decided to make a live DVD as a thank you to the fans who haved stayed loyal to the band since the beginning, as well as a thank you to the new fans who have supported them over the last couple years. However, they could not have chosen a worse time on tour to film a live DVD. The DVD takes place in Worcester, Mass which was right at the end of the tour. And it shows with the performance of lead vocalist Mike Hranica. There are mixed opinions on his style of screaming, which is, in my opinion, bearable. That is not the case on the DVD. His voice sounds very weak, and half the time he has to talk some of the words in order to not lose his voice completely. It sounds like he has a bad case of laryngitis. I had the opportunity to see TDWP on the Dead Throne Tour in Chicago which was the second stop on the tour. His voice sounded amazing at that show, and it shows that long tours can put a strain of a vocalists voice. Clean vocalist/guitarist Jeremy DePoyster sounds better than I thought he was going to. He was not able to hit some of the notes that he hit on the albums, but his overall performance was enjoyable. Vocals - 2
The instrumentation sounds excellent. Chris Rubey plays his leads flawlessly and effortlessly. The rhythms of DePoyster are good as well. The breakdowns sound excellent as Rubey and DePoyster play them to perfection. Drummer Daniel Williams shows that he has some serious skills behind the kit as he kicks and hits ferociously throughout the entire show. As usual, Andy Tick's base is barely noticeable; however, it does make some surprise appearances here and there. Keyboardist James Baney, who is no longer in the band, does his job well, puting his moments of glory to good use. Intrumentation - 4.5
The Devil Wears Prada chose a horrible concert to film their live DVD. While the instrumentation is almost flawless, the vocals of Hranica are just too unbareable to listen to. If they had filmed this earlier in the tour, when Hranica sounded good, this was sure to have been rated a 4.5
