Greetings readers!

I wanted to take a minute and write up a detailed review of my most recently acquired album—Dead Throne by The Devil Wears Prada (TDWP). The album came out just yesterday, and I’m already having trouble getting it out of my listening rotation. Then again, I’ve been hooked on TDWP since their album Plagues back in 2007. I know they had Discord before that, but truly, Plagues is what got me. 

Ok, history aside, let’s get into the meat of this business. I give Dead Throne a 4/5.

Dead Throne is a difficult album to review—after the Zombie EP, I’ve had really high expectations for TDWP’s capabilities to write great music. Dead Throne delivers as a fairly solid metalcore album, but TDWP fans may find division among one another depending on where they jumped on TDWP’s bandwagon. If you got in at Plagues (or sooner), you’ll feel some fan service and natural progression. If you didn’t hear of these guys until Roots or Zombie, this album may be disappointing if you’re looking for more of that sound.

Here’s why—This album features Hranica, DePoyster, and Rubey interchanging vocals. DePoyster plays it pretty safe with his typical style—soaring and high with some echoes to make it really enchanting. He does get a little throaty in their single “Born to Lose” during the chorus, however, and it sounds pretty gnarly. Hranica explores a bit more, toying with plain yelling (a la Comeback Kid) in several tracks and even parroting some Mitch-Lucker-esque grunts (refer to 2:53 or “My Questions” and 1:28 of “Constance”).  

I’ve carefully chosen my words when I say parroting—Hranica doesn’t seem to grunt much. We get occasional “Oh!” and “Yeah!” or even just “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” in previous albums, but the sounds he makes here don’t sound inventive or natural to his style. Do they sound bad? No, but not quite his own. 

The point I’m making—this totals out to a lot more yelling and screaming and less clean vocals. Some songs have NO clean vocals at all. This plays more toward their earlier works (especially Discord) and less toward their later works (Roots and Zombie) which have lots of interchanging with singing and screaming, and no yelling. Dead Throne is much more raw and rough around the edges, and I mean that in the best way possible. 

Vocals aside, the guitars and drums don’t stray much from the paths we’ve seen in previous works—strumming out rhythms, chugging riffs, and punctuated punchy drums. I felt like the guitar in “Born to Lose” was the most standout and catchy, but it also felt like it wanted to go into a solo and never got to do so. The double-bass in the chorus of said song is also ridiculously excessive. The bass guitar surfaced on several occasions, even leading the sound right alongside the drums—this was a pleasant surprise that felt like a hardcore/punk kick and paired well with the yelling vocals mentioned earlier. And the synthesizers…wait, was there a synthesizer in this album? Or a piano? If there was, it didn’t step forward enough to be pronounced and heard. 

Where does this leave the album as a whole? It’s great. It feels a bit disjointed at times, as tracks 7 and 10 are lighter than the rest of the album, so you get two heavy songs sandwiched between two light songs…but the two light songs are doused in nine other heavy songs. This disrupts some of the flow, but not enough to be jarring. “Constance” features a guest spot from Tim Lambesis of As I Lay Dying, and it really took me a minute to identify him—he sounds much lower on this album than I’ve heard him in most other works. When I heard it, I wrote down “BRUTAL,” circled it, and then broke every window in my house. 

My favorite track has to be “Forever Decay,” as it’s easily the heaviest song on the album. It starts heavy and fast, and doesn’t let up—even in the chorus. This will be the song to see live, and the place to lose your teeth in the pit. “Vengeance,” “My Questions,” and “Born to Lose” probably have the greatest hooks and will have you singing them poorly in your car after just one listen. 

The album is in stores. It’s worth every penny—get out there and buy it! 

Let me start off by saying I’m in amazement that my youngest son (Jac) turns four tomorrow. 

Yes, four. I’m bringing him later today to get his drivers license, but only if he goes without a potty accident.

This made me think about where my family was four years ago. We lived in a trailer that we rented (for which we paid utilities out the nose) and had around $10 in a change jar. Everything we had, we cherished.  There was no “make it work,” it was “The only eating utensils we have—a cake-serving spatula and a punch bowl. And it’s spaghetti night.” I’m not going to pretend like we were in poverty—we got by, but it wasn’t always easy.

In four short years, my family has grown by a daughter and we have a house that we’re growing in together. Now I’m going through the joys of home-ownership (which entails becoming just a little excited when something breaks, because then  you have something to talk to your friends about—“Punk kids put chocolate chips in my water heater again!” “Wilikers, Bob! Get r done!”) and dealing with the public school system for my oldest kid, Diego. That’s going well so far, except Diego is wildly suspicious that one kid is indeed a vicious criminal of sorts. What’s tipped him off? The kid was wearing a Lightning McQueen backpack, was 5’10”, and was trying to sell baggies of pills to passers-by. 

Just kidding about the backpack.

Either way, reflecting on the past, I can’t say I have anything to complain about. I have my wife to thank for keeping me sane when life has driven me there a few times. I couldn’t do it without her…  I love you sweetie!

Now that I’ve had a moment of the sentimental, I feel less guilty about diving head first into my shallow side.

The Evo 3D that I’ve been so pumped for the last few weeks for—doesn’t work very well in my area. The 3G service (all that’s around, no 4G) was intensely slow on the phone, which made it pretty much unusable. It’s like when my Segway breaks—How am I supposed to get from my bed to the car? Either way, I had to get a different phone. I left Best Buy mobile yesterday with a Motorola Photon 4G and a new Jawbone Era headset and I haven’t looked back. It’s such an awesome setup, and I cheese out every time I look at the humongoid screen. I also have an app that makes phone calls. 

That’s all I’ve got for the day. Work calls. Later! 

Hey—

I’m Nick. I posted a few things already—I didn’t know the tumblr bot question would post. I thought it was a survey. I thought it was just for Tumblr to collect information. I should have thought twice.

I guess I think too much. Whatever.

This blog is likely going to be a collection of my ramblings and snippets from my upcoming book (still untitled) due out whenever I feel like it. 

I hope you enjoy it—I’ll keep my ranting to a maximum. 

TELLING MY GRANDMA I WAS FOUR AT MY BIRTHDAY PARTY

LEAVE ME ALONE 

YOU MADE ME PANIC SO HARD

So I decided to try out Tumblr. I decided that I have enough experiences day to day that I can no longer keep my inner rumblings silent—I will post!

I’ve decided it’s best to make this updates about my novel—I can post longer excerpts and the thoughts going into the work. I’m working hard to complete this, and I have a great story lined up. I’m hoping anyone who follows along with this gets hyped for this.  Meet Rich, the frame story’s protagonist.

An overwhelming crowd formed from the grove outside the fence—too many for Rich to handle all at once while trying to carry Norm. He glanced at his fallen comrade, and back to his assailants.

The dark red ooze leaked from Norm. Norm was able to choke out ‘Help me,’ but his whispers fell just above silence. Rich stepped forward, and held out his left hand to the wounded man. Norm reached up with his own left, still sticky with his own blood. Rich’s gloved hand gripped tightly around Norm’s palm and thumb, but neither began to pull. Norm blinked heavily, and lifted his eyes to meet Rich’s. 

“‘Nothin worth savin here,’ right Norm?”

Even as darkness clouded his vision, Norm could see the silver lining of the machete coming down into his left shoulder. Rich’s grip never loosened, even when the arm was fully detached. Rich gave Norm’s arm a toss into the oncoming crowd—the dead circled it like hungry dogs to a meaty bone. Rich turned and lit a cigarette. Norm sat silently, removed from the fate of his late left arm. His lips slid around his teeth for one last toothy smile. Rich turned his head slightly before walking away.

“Goodbye, Norm.”

Please keep reading! I’ll keep posting teasers!