It's been four years now since dream-pop outfit DIIV released their debut album Oshin back in 2012. It was an album that did find a very positive reception, but I personally found it to be repetitive, boring, and just like any other dream-pop album to come out before it. Essentially, the band were taking the most accessible albums of shoegaze, things like the reverb soaked vocals and instrumentation and the mixing of those previously mentioned instruments being much louder than the vocals, but leaving behind the atmosphere and "wall of sound" so to speak, that often accompanies shoegaze music.
While I certainly did have my flaws with the band's debut, I also saw that there may be some potential beneath the band's otherwise fairly generic exterior. If they could work out the kinks, embrace more of the shoegaze sound, and leave behind the indie-pop guitar riffs, perhaps, just perhaps they could escape being lumped together with nearly every other band in the same genre.
All that I hoped for, everything that I thought the band could do to right the wrongs they had previously committed, is no where to be found on their second full-length release Is The Is Are. The album is about as incomprehensible as the title, nothing more than a 60+ minute 17 track blur with every song sounding oh so similar to the one before it, and the one before that one, and of course the one before that one as well. Just like on their previous effort, the New York based five piece have compiled a grouping of tracks that easily could be found on any other dream-pop project. The vocals remain for the most part nonsensical, the reverb soaked guitar and vocals remain the same, and the band continues to choose to play almost identical guitar riffs on a regular basis. At times, it appears that the band is toying with post-punk inspired bass lines, but they don't fit the sound that the rest of the group are trying to emulate, and instead of being a nice change of pace it ends up making for a very odd choice. Even after listening to this album time and time again, it's still difficult to remember the tracks and what the band did on them, partially because it sounds that similar, and partially because it's just that forgettable.
There are however, three song's that to do manage to stick out on the album. All three of these songs share the similarity of containing a secondary title of (*name's* Song.) I'm not sure what the significance of the names' included are, aside from Bent (Sky's Song) which features frontman Zachary Cole Smith's girlfriend Sky Ferreira. These tracks are the only time throughout the album that the band truly takes any sort of risk, and actually embraces the shoegaze sound completely by playing with elements of feedback, very heavy noisy distortion, and the aforementioned "wall of sound." Not only do these make for good tracks by DIIV's standards, but they make for fairly enjoyable tracks by any standards. They distinguish themselves from the rest of the track-listing, and actually offer some enjoyable moments. Sky's Song, for example, reminds me quite a bit of iconic noise-rock outfit Sonic Youth, especially the spoken vocals that cause Ferreira to sound quite a bit like Kim Gordon. Bent (Roi's Song) is a track that features lots of distortion and feedback, making it one of the noisier cuts on the album, the only other truly noisy track is Mire (Grant's Song), as it also features a ton of feedback, but rather than fading, it stays in the background of the recording throughout. As the final few minutes of the song nears, we get a short little noisy interlude as well. While the guitar passage continues, there's also a ton of other noises going on, someone playing with their strings causing even more feedback as well as the drummer going completely off tempo, and it creates something that actually sounds worthy of the shoegaze tag.
To sum up DIIV's recent effort, it's 85% what every other dream-pop is doing, 15% quality. The three songs where the band step out of their apparent comfort zone and really strive for something different, they succeed, but on almost every other track the group seems comfortable with these interchangeable elements that make the album as boring and uninspired as it ends up being.
Favorite Tracks: Bent (Roi's Song), Blue Boredom (Sky's Song), Mire (Grant's Song)
Least Favorite Tracks: If I could remember any other songs, I'd tell you, but I already forget them.
Rating: 2/5
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