The Devil Wears Prada have always felt like one of those bands that could always have been much bigger than they were. Although many people agree that their Zombie EP was not only the best thing they’ve ever done, but also a stellar EP in general, their full-length records have not managed to garner the attention of enough people for them to be anything more than a mid-afternoon act at festivals.
So could this be their next Zombie EP, and be the thing to break them out of this strange limbo that they find themselves in? The Devil Wears Prada are doing ok in the US but will the Space EP find them getting the same attention in the UK?
We doubt it.
It’s not a bad EP. It’s actually enjoyable, but really only if this is your kind of thing. One of the main problems with The Devil Wears Prada is that their music is a little bit formulaic (what do you expect , it’s metalcore?) and there isn’t that crazy spark, that little extra something, that makes other metalcore bands so heart-poundingly great to listen to. With The Devil Wears Prada you can pretty much call what bit of the song is about to follow the one you’re listening to. Here’s the discordant thuddy riff bit, here’s the clean vocal section, here’s the fast section. Brilliant.
That isn’t to say that this album is boring to listen to as such. There isn’t only negatives about Space EP – even though you know what’s about to happen, it’s still fun to listen to. One thing that you can always say about The Devil Wears Prada is that they know how to create an atmosphere. ‘Songs like Moongod’ contain these sections where there’s only some synths and the crackling of the radio, done in such a way that if you closed your eyes you could easily be floating around on your own in the middle of space. Even ‘Alien’ somehow manages to sound as vicious as whatever creatures the band clearly had in their mind while writing this song.
It’s unlikely that this EP will make The Devil Wears Prada one of the biggest bands in the world, and it doesn’t really deserve to, but it’s still not a bad way to spend half an hour. Solid yet typical riffs, big atmospheres, and as always great vocal performances from Mike Hranica and Jeremy DePoyster. ‘Supernova’ is one of the best songs The Devil Wears Prada have written in a long time, and the ending to ‘Asteroid’ is immense.
