Dear Love: A Beautiful Discord＜限定盤/Violet Vinyl＞

The full-length debut by the Devil Wears Prada shows that as dubious as the concept of Christian metal might sound to the unconvinced (and/or the unsaved), it's not necessarily an intrinsically bad idea. This Dayton quintet is fairly wide-ranging in its influences, flavoring the standard blastbeats-and-unison-riffs template songs with keyboards out of European symphonic metal, emo-tinged clean vocals (courtesy of guitarist Jeremy DePoyster) and, most surprisingly, a sense of playfulness that's largely missing from both CCM and metal. Even aside from some jokey song titles ("Who Speaks Spanish, Colon Quesadilla"), there's a lightness of spirit evident in these songs that elevates Dear Love: A Beautiful Discord above the standard-issue metal ghetto. Essentially a re-recording of the band's 2005 debut EP, Patterns of a Horizon, plus two excellent new songs, "Dogs Can Grow Beards All Over" and "Texas Is South," this album features better sound and tighter arrangements than the debut, rendering the earlier record necessary only for completists. ~ Stewart Mason