ZIRP! DIIV

ZIRP! is DIIV's fifth album and all four previous albums can be found on this blog, 'Oshin' (2012), 'Is The Is Are' (2016), 'Deceiver' (2019) and 'Frog In Boiling Water' (2024). As you can see, ZIRP! follows on the previous album in record time. Once again, I took an immediate shine to a new album by DIIV.

Also, once again the music on the latest album is different from what came before. The Cure references are largely gone, the grunge of 'Deceiver', as is the shoegaze of 'Frog In Boiling Water'. It is harder to pin  ZIRP! down easily, as the music is far more diverse. Zachary Cole Smith's voice remains the same of course. Devoid of bass, it reminds me most of Billy Corgan, without that snarling sneer Corgan uses to emphasise his lyrics. The change in DIIV's music is in what happens around Cole Smith's voice. There is quite some electronics involved.

Listen to the intro of 'The Fountain' opening ZIRP!. It's as if the electrical currents connecting the instrument to the recording gear is broken or somehow hindered, making it impossible to be recorded in one piece. This sort of effects return all over the album, creating a darker vibe over the whole. The contrast between Cole Smith's voice and the music is almost shocking in 'Underground', making the album more than the 80s influenced indie rock that may have been the basis when starting work on ZIRP!, before the studio options and effects took over.

The result is that DIIV gets something of Smashing Pumpkins. However, on the one side it is far softer or more precisely, a sound not blown up to the max, allowing for far more details to be heard, while on the other hand the details are far more radical in sound. That DIIV found the right balance between the two, shows the craft of the band and its producer A.G. Cook. Cook pushed the band to revisit the demos and recordings of ZIRP! already done and started to rework them together, using effects and not computers. The result is astonishing in most of the songs.

ZIRP!'s sound palet will allow the listener to hear new sounds and parts after many listening sessions. Time will tell if that will make the album grow over time with each new listening sessions as well. My guess tight now is that it will. Exactly because it is so rich in sounds, that go way beyond the guitar (Andrew Bailey), bass (Colin Coulfield) and drums (Ben Newman).

DIIV has more or less surprised me with each new album, but this time it is different. I am genuinely looking forward to hearing this album more often.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

 

You can listen to and order ZIRP! here:

https://diiv.bandcamp.com/album/zirp