The Devil Wears Prada is exactly what you would expect from a band on Rise Records: fashionable, flavor-of-the-week metalcore. Sure enough, all the staples of a generic metalcore record (alternating sing/scream vocals, dissonant breakdowns, and clichéd metal riffs) are in place on Dear Love: A Beautiful Dischord. Top it all off with pristine production and song titles that more stupid than they are clever, and what you're left with is an album that is competent, yet ultimately disposable.

Trying to say anything positive about this disc is a challenge, to the say the least, but this band does show some skills here and there. The addition of keyboards is a nice touch, and helps add a little flair to an album otherwise completely devoid of originality. The melodic riffs that come halfway through "Texas Is South" are kind of cool, and the buildup they create is fairly epic.

Those brief flashes of musical decency aren't enough to save this CD though, and despite the band's best efforts, most of Dear Love is pretty boring. While TDWP do possess a fair amount of technical ability, they suffer greatly from being too trendy for their own good. TDWP's breakdowns sound like they were lifted directly from a Norma Jean album, who in turn lifted their entire sound directly from Botch. It's like listening to a clone of a clone, and it sucks.

Furthermore, when you give your songs names like "Dogs Can Grow Beards All Over" and "Swords, Dragons, & Diet Coke" you can't honestly expect anyone to take you seriously. Throw in lyrics like, "Welcome to the war; a martyr's challenge / Chainsaw brutality tornado strength / King of diamond, king of the grave," and it's really hard not to laugh at, rather than with, these guys.

In the end, TDWP tries too hard to conform to current scene trends, and end up falling on their faces because of it. With a little more maturity, TDWP could grow into a contender, but that probably won't happen before the trends they're busy chasing stop being cool. Oh well.