Now HE’s making rock music! Having been behind the controls of many of Charli XCX’s greatest triumphs, most recently MUSIC, FASHION, FILM, producer A.G. Cook is enlisted by indie-rock group DIIV for their magnificent fifth studio album, ZIRP! His studio wizardry is evident from the off, as the wonderful opening track, ‘The Fountain’, kicks things off with glitching plumes of guitar distortion and feedback, adding new rhythmic trickery to the band’s hazy shoegaze foundation.
With Cook on board, many, including the band themselves, have seen ZIRP! as DIIV’s move towards mainstream pop, and while the album does have a crisp sheen to it, the reality is, thankfully, far from it. Longtime fans who have revelled in the band’s ability to conjure a swooning shoegaze romanticism from their crunching, growling guitars will find more than enough to enjoy here. Rather than attempt to alter DIIV’s sound, Cook instead offers subtle interventions throughout, and this lightness of touch proves to be a masterstroke from both producer and band. Consistently throughout the album, embellishments that are sometimes minute in nature – a glitch, a sample, a rhythmic loop – ensure tracks remain fresh and playful.
As the album unfolds, tracks including ‘Kid’, ‘Dare Me’ and ‘Us Against You’ will have those in love with the psychedelia-via-noise sorcery of my bloody valentine’s strain of shoegaze suitably enraptured. In particular, ‘Dare Me’ and ‘Us Against You’, which both foreground the screeching, distorted euphoria of time-bent whammy-bar mastery alongside Zachary Cole Smith’s purring, androgynous vocals, are among the best DIIV have captured in their 15-year career. Later, ‘Underground’ and ‘My Star’ are further evidence of a band that still loves to lose itself in the transcendent grunginess of warped walls of kaleidoscopic noise.
The ZIRP! of the title refers to the acronym for Zero Interest Rate Policy, the economic policy adopted most famously in the US following the 2008 financial crash, which helped fuel a new era of cheap capital and investment, sowing the seeds for the astronomical rise of social media companies, tech start-ups and streaming platforms. As those companies exert further control over everyday existence, ZIRP! is DIIV’s most overtly politicised statement to date, with tracks including the catastrophe-beckoning ‘The Crash’ and the satirical pop of ‘Trillions’ tackling themes of economic inequality and societal breakdown head-on.
ZIRP! is a welcome, newly nuanced return from a band that have never made anything other than excellent records.
ZIRP! is available now on vinyl & CD.
