Hung Jury
The Devil Wears Prada are a six piece hardcore outfit (complete with keyboards) and pull a decent crowd over on the second stage. Metalcore, post hardcore, call it what you will but the simple facts are that they are damn heavy and damn loud and early on I’m wondering why the keyboard player is even here as you can’t hear anything he’s doing!
The problem with The Devil Wears Prada today is that drum rhythms aside, there’s nothing to set one song apart from the next. There’s the odd 4/4 time signature that breaks it up a little but the sound just isn’t good enough to allow any other dynamics to come through and much like Alesana before them they often come over as nothing more than a wall of noise.
They are visually entertaining with the whole band head banging in unison and keyboard player James Baney spending a lot of time front of stage working the crowd, garnering a decent response for his efforts. The crowd steadily pick up during their set and they even get a small pit going during the last song.
Vocalist Mike Hranica falls into the trap of announcing songs in the “this one’s called ooouuurraaaggh!!” style, which is largely pointless and his growling vocal style doesn’t add much to the mix today. It would be unfair of us to judge them purely on this performance as the sound really isn’t good enough to make any kind of an informed opinion. As such the jury is out.