DIIV
Is The Is Are
[Captured Tracks]
Is The Is Are, the latest release from Brooklyn shoegazers DIIV, has been the subject of hushed, hype-stirring mutterings for a stretch approaching the interminable. Since the 2013 arrest for heroin possession of Zachary Cole Smith, a frontman whose Cobain-aping persona is as transparent as it is trite, there’s been an assumption that the work that followed the incident would reach some sort of heretofore unseen plane of excellence. Amongst all the giddy reporting that the record was finally nearing completion it became abundantly clear the old cliché that shooting gear somehow makes middle-class white dudes with guitars into geniuses remains, inexplicably, intact.
Listening to Is The Is Are brings with it a certain incredulity: how can anyone possibly consider this blank, seemingly endless exercise in re-treading long-established indie tropes to be anything worth getting excited about? Even in the moments where the band deliver a reverb-laden guitar run that is marginally more engaging that the previous 18 reverb-laden guitar runs any potency is drained through sheer exhaustion at the sameness of every moment on this monument to characterlessness. DIIV have essentially taken a latterday Real Estate album and replaced their warm, worn-sounding, breezy quality with a calculated, distancing aloofness. They’ve stripped a Deerhunter album of the effects of any of their more outré musical touchstones in favour of sounding more like early U2. Take the hype with a chipper-grade portion of salt, the emperor has no clothes.
Like this? Try these:
Real Estate – Days
Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
Girls Names – Arms Around a Vision
