The Devil Wears Prada: The Horde Is Here
Picture the scene. It’s 2010, David Cameron has just become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Eyjafjallajokull volcano is spewing ash into the stratosphere, causing European travel chaos. Oil is spilling across the Gulf Of Mexico, but all is well, because one of the 21st Century’s most iconic metalcore EP’s is about to be unleashed to the soundtrack of a chainsaw and desperate gunshots. Crafted by Ohio based juggernauts THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, Zombie EP took the world by storm. It was a twenty-three minute stamp of authority that pulled the band from the pool of hopefuls and showed the world what they intended to be. A serious player.
Gone were the comical song titles of old, and in their place were five impeccably structured tracks that threatened to change the game. At its core, it was a record that unsurprisingly depicted a zombie apocalypse, but this was a level up for THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, offering some of the finest song-writing that they’ve showcased to date. And now eleven years on, we have been blessed with a sequel. This is not a test, this is not a joke, and although ZII might take a slightly different approach, it is a natural successor to the original work and follows up on the band’s promise to write some properly heavy music again.
We were fortunate to speak with frontman Mike Hranica and learn more about ZII, with one of the first questions simply being, ‘why now?’ As Mike explained, the idea came very naturally to them once live shows began to cancel last year. “We’d just done a bunch of anniversary tours, and it felt like ten years later was the perfect time to approach the follow up. Initially we wanted to do a couple of songs, but with more time off we felt like we should record more than just two. It just felt right, old line up or new.” From a fan’s perspective, it’s always great to hear new THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA music, especially something so wonderfully nostalgic.
Writing an EP about the undead overwhelming the planet during a real-life viral outbreak is interesting timing, and an irony that doesn’t seem to be lost on the band. Mike told us, “the last thing I want is for this EP to be seen ten years from now as the ‘Zombie COVID’ EP, but at the same time I did lean on the very real reality we’re facing right now, and watching how the government handles this virus outbreak. So it definitely made its way in here and there lyrically.” Regardless of the band’s intentions, we can all relate to the ‘hopelessness against the hoard’ metaphor that ZII poses, although hopefully there is more hope for us than relentless oblivion. Touch wood.
From THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA‘s perspective, the pandemic has been a mixture of emotions. As with many of us, it has been a point of reflection, and allowed them to take stock of where they are, and what avenues they may want to approach moving forwards. We can be grateful at least that the COVID-19 outbreak planted the seed for ZII in the first place, but it also seems to have resuscitated a forgotten hunger amongst the band’s ranks. As Mike puts it, “unfortunately, I think in some ways we have become complacent and I know that when we can resume our more regular schedule in terms of playing shows, we’re going to try and hit it with more emphasis than we ever have. We definitely want to challenge ourselves more.” Sometimes disaster can breed real positives, and the promise of normality resuming is certainly a silver lining.
Sonically, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA have always aimed to push themselves. Believing strongly in the notion that rock bands don’t always challenge themselves as much as other genres such as hip-hop and pop do. One of their core values is to help push for a more versatile approach to song-writing, and although an EP about a zombies invading probably isn’t their most glaring example, it’s certainly a part of the overall objective. “I don’t think we’ll necessarily be the ones to ‘be the change’, but at the same time I wouldn’t sit here and say we want to challenge rock being stale if we didn’t have the gall to back it up. I’ve always disliked the word experimental, people are always like ‘this is experimental’ but no it isn’t, it’s still just drums and guitar and stuff, I think the better thing is to just work harder to do something that hasn’t been heard before. If you listen to [our previous album] The Act, tracks like Please Say No or Diamond Lost are sort of our proposals as to where rock can go. A crossover between pop sensibilities with rock, really trying to push over boundaries from one place to another.”
But in the spirit of keeping people guessing, ZII is back-to-roots, emphatically heavy THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. They will never be the band to completely throw out their rulebook, but their future will always be clouded by an intriguing question mark, and that is a part of why their brand is idolised by so many. In Mike’s words it’s “better to surprise people rather than just having them hear the same rock song from the same rock band,” and we don’t think many people would argue that. After eleven years, the time is finally here to succumb to the hoard and accept that we are in fact well and truly outnumbered.
ZII is out now via Solid State Records.
Like THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA on Facebook.