The Devil Wears Prada have al­ways ex­plored life’s ex­tremes in their mu­sic. They’ve never shied away from star­ing down dark­ness, deal­ing with de­pres­sion, mak­ing sense of con­fu­sion, sooth­ing anx­i­ety, or grap­pling with faith, ex­is­tence, and death. At the same time, they’ve mir­rored life’s ups and downs by al­ter­nat­ing be­tween crush­ing heav­i­ness and heart-wrench­ing melodies. After over two decades of mak­ing mu­sic, their union as band­mates—but more im­por­tantly as friends—is stronger than ever. All of this time and ex­pe­ri­ence ul­ti­mately em­pow­ered the group—Mike Hranica [vocals], Jeremy DePoyster [guitar, vo­cals], Kyle Sipress [guitar], Jonathan Gering [keys, synths, pro­gram­ming, per­cus­sion], and Giuseppe Capolupo [drums]—to make a state­ment on their ninth full-length of­fer­ing, Flowers [Solid State]. Matching bold themes with equally bold songs, they process grief, weather strug­gle, and not only heal to­gether, but cre­atively blos­som like never be­fore.
However, they still never stop ask­ing ques­tions and si­mul­ta­ne­ously push­ing heavy mu­sic for­ward.
“Music has pro­vided so much for us,” Mike de­clares. “However, we wake up and won­der what it all means like a lot of peo­ple do. We’ve lived a less than typ­i­cal life, and it lends it­self to this line of ques­tion­ing.”
“The al­bum is a story of try­ing to un­der­stand why you still deal with dark­ness and demons even af­ter you’ve got­ten every­thing you thought you wanted,” Jeremy elab­o­rates. “Those things don’t make you happy though, so you’re jour­ney­ing for­ward. Eventually, you set­tle into this quest we’re all on. The record is­n’t an an­swer for what to do. We just said these feel­ings out loud, so maybe your emo­tions are val­i­dated as a lis­tener.”
The Devil Wears Prada have al­ways been there for au­di­ences. Among a string of sem­i­nal re­leases, Revolver read­ers named With Roots Above and Branches Below [2009] one of the “5 Greatest Metalcore Albums,” the Zombie EP [2010] and Dead Throne [2011] each de­buted in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, and 2021’s ZII marked their sixth straight Top 5 en­try on the Billboard Top Hard Rock Albums Chart. They have also tal­lied nearly a half-a-bil­lion streams—un­prece­dented for most acts this heavy. The group el­e­vated to an­other stratos­phere with Color Decay [2022], sell­ing out their biggest shows world­wide and re­ceiv­ing some of the high­est praise of their ca­reer. Beyond ac­claim from New Noise Magazine, KERRANG!, OUTBURN, Loudwire, and Hysteria, Metal Hammer went as far as to rave, “Color Decay might just be their finest hour.”
During 2024, the mu­si­cians de­camped to a VRBO in Rodgers, AR for three weeks where they con­structed the foun­da­tion for the LP with Jon again at the helm as pro­ducer. Following their time “in this heav­enly cor­ner of Arkansas,” Jon, Jeremy, and Mike took a hand­ful of trips to Los Angeles. Putting the fin­ish­ing touches on record­ing, the guys col­lab­o­rated with Tyler Smyth [I Prevail, Falling In Reverse], Austin Coupe [Lø Spirit, Moodring], Colin Brittain [Linkin Park, Papa Roach], Fit For A King’s Bobby Lynge, and Marshall Gallagher of Teenage Wrist. They also en­listed Color Decay col­lab­o­ra­tor Sam Guaiana as an en­gi­neer and tapped Zakk Cervini [Bring Me The Horizon, Spiritbox] for mix­ing and mas­ter­ing.
20 years deep into their ca­reer to­gether, their cre­ativ­ity has surged to life on Flowers though, rep­re­sent­ing per­haps their most sig­nif­i­cant cre­ative leap for­ward yet. Fans im­me­di­ately re­acted too as The Devil Wears Prada her­alded the al­bum with “Ritual” and “For You,” reel­ing in tens of mil­lions of streams and stok­ing an­tic­i­pa­tion.
They prop­erly in­tro­duce Flowers with the dual-sin­gle “Where The Flowers Never Grow” and “Wave.” The for­mer’s bright key­board melody blos­soms out of a fre­netic beat, while a thick riff buzzes un­der­neath the bridge. Illuminated by a flurry of flick­er­ing keys and gui­tar, raw emo­tion spills from the ir­re­sistible re­frain, “I fall back to what I know, that same place where the flow­ers never grow.” They’re us­ing “happy” sounds to pacify pain.
“The ‘place where the flow­ers never grow’ is an anal­ogy for where you go when you’re alone,” re­veals Jeremy. “For us, it could be sit­ting still alone and won­der­ing why we can’t find hap­pi­ness. You’ve got to find peace in the medi­oc­rity in­stead of striv­ing for it ex­ter­nally.”
As “Wave” ebbs and flows, ethe­real gui­tar ac­com­pa­nies a gen­tle vo­cal ac­cented by sparse keys. Breathy de­liv­ery car­ries the open-hearted hook over soft strings. Mike says, “We like to map out our lives, but you’ve got to be able to re­lin­quish con­trol.” It serves as a re­minder to let life lead you where it will.
“I try to be pos­i­tive and think, ‘Ride the wave, man,’,” smiles Jeremy. “I be­lieve there’s a true path you’re sup­posed to be on. If you fight against, it can be hard.”
Pulsating keys give way to an up­beat drum gal­lop on “So Low.” This for­ward mo­tion breaks on a plea, “I wish that some­body could tell me why the highs feel so low. I only feel alive when I lose con­trol.” It rec­og­nizes a toxic per­son­al­ity trait, wrestling with the need for at­ten­tion.
“To me, ‘So Low’ is al­most fight­ing the mun­dane, set­ting it all on fire, and blow­ing it up to get a re­ac­tion,” notes Mike.
Ominous bass rum­bles straight through “Everybody Knows” un­til a clean elec­tric gui­tar up­lifts an­other chant, “I can’t get back. Gotta find an­other path. Maybe this will fi­nally take home.”
“It’s sort of a con­tin­u­a­tion of ‘Chemical’,” Jeremy re­veals. “You’ve had too many drinks. You try keep­ing it to­gether, but your anx­i­ety is mak­ing you feel like every­body knows you’re out of con­trol.”
The airy hum of “Eyes” in­stantly trans­fixes as the verses wres­tle with ex­is­ten­tial ques­tions. The ten­sion over­flows through a scream, “Give me eyes.”
“For Jeremy and me, ‘Eyes’ re­moves the veil of what we per­son­ally be­lieve and re­li­gion,” Mike states. “I was raised in a very or­di­nary Christian home, but we aren’t a Christian band. We’re speak­ing on the con­cept.”
Then, there’s “All Out.” Laser-precise riff­ing thrashes and burns, tum­bling be­neath the un­der­tow of the break­down at full speed. Unpredictable rhythms track the manic jumps from melodic vo­cals to gut­tural growls. “Lyrically, it’s about see­ing a friend choose self­ish­ness over the re­la­tion­ship,” Mike com­ments. “It’s got a bit of the past and the pre­sent, mu­si­cally.”
Flowers is The Devil Wears Prada at their most hon­est, heart­felt, and here in the mo­ment.
“We’re no dif­fer­ent than you are,” Jeremy re­minds. “We’re all in this to­gether, and we’re all go­ing to get through it to­gether.”
“The fact we’re still here af­ter twenty years is amaz­ing,” mar­vels Mike. “Once the record’s over, you sort of ac­cept this is where we are, this is where we landed, and this is where we’re meant to be.”