By Josh Herwitt //
DIIV with Lightning Bolt, untitled (halo) //
The Wiltern – Los Angeles
June 29th, 2024 //
For nearly 15 years it’s no secret the music industry has moved farther away from the guitar-driven rock that prevailed through much of the 90’s and early 2000’s. Some have even gone as far to now say “rock is dead,” and while we can point out some of our own experiences from recent memory — including one here — to counter that claim, there have only been a handful of new bands since 2010 that accurately fit the description and have hooked me enough to catch them live.
Australian sextet King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are one of those acts, and their three-hour marathon at the iconic Hollywood Bowl last summer (read our show review here) was one of our favorite shows in 2023 (see our picks here).
English bass-and-drums duo Royal Blood are another, and their bone-rattling concert at The Wiltern in November (read our show review here) was also a highlight for us last year.
Of course we can’t forget about Houston psych-funk-rock trio Khruangbin, which have continued their ascent with sold-out gigs at some of America’s biggest music venues and events. In fact, we still think about their 2022 appearance on Day 2 of Primavera Sound LA (read our festival review here).
And then there’s “American indie-groove band” Goose, who gave us a chance to finally watch them in the flesh several months ago when they made their Santa Barbara Bowl debut and a compelling case why they have been one of the hottest (jam) bands lately (read our show review here).
Obviously there are supergroups and/or side projects like The Smile, boygenius and The New Basement Tapes as well, while others might argue that bands such as Greta Van Fleet, Hockey Dad, Turnstile, Wet Leg and Viagra Boys have carried the torch forward for the genre (note: IDLES were not mentioned here because they formed back in 2009 along with Alabama Shakes, Atoms for Peace, Broken Bells, Dawes, The Dead Weather, How to Destroy Angels, Rival Sons, Them Crooked Vultures and Wild Nothing).
But standing among some of the best to arrive on the scene in roughly the last decade and a half are DIIV, which began as a solo endeavor for Zachary Cole Smith (lead vocals, guitar) after previous stints as a guitarist in the psych-rock outfit Soft Black and drummer/guitarist for indie rockers Beach Fossils while he was living in Brooklyn.
Smith has relocated to LA since DIIV’s formation, but the group’s sound has remained fairly consistent — dreamy, hazy vocals float on top of gritty, fuzzed-out guitars as they collide with punchy rhythms that immediately evoke comparisons to Modest Mouse, Silversun Pickups, Slowdive and even Explosions in the Sky when we listen. That’s not to say DIIV’s shoegaze-laden soundscapes don’t have their own feel and vibe, though. They very much have their own identity, as Smith’s catchy riffs often pull you in at the start and build up to moments of pure sonic bliss like on “Taker” or “Acheron” that stands as the longest track in the DIIV catalog at more than seven minutes.
Four albums in following the May release of Frog in Boiling Water on Fantasy Records, and the quartet that was a five-piece in the early 2010’s and currently includes Smith’s childhood friend Andrew Bailey (guitar), Colin Caulfield (bass, keyboards, guitar, vocals) and Ben Newman (drums) are no doubt a well-established unit at this point. The 10-track LP anchored by lead single “Brown Paper Bag” has already garnered critical acclaim from quite a few media outlets and fits in nicely with the rest of DIIV’s material, showcasing Smith’s continued growth and evolution as a singer-songwriter. And although we can’t say his overall range behind the microphone has transformed dramatically dating back to 2012’s full-length debut Oshin, Smith does come across more forceful in his delivery on DIIV’s latest studio effort.
Wrapping up the first leg of a 33-date North American tour last Saturday at The Wiltern with Rhode Island noise-rock duo Lightning Bolt and LA’s untitled (halo) providing support, Smith and company delivered plenty of highs from “Doused” to “Blankenship” and yet left us yearning to hear others like “Dopamine” off 2016’s Is the Is Are and “Skin Game” from 2019’s Deceiver. The fact that neither of those are being played was somewhat surprising — even if they aren’t among their Top 5 songs on Spotify — and yet encouraging considering how well we thought their 90-minute performance in LA flowed from one song to the next. DIIV haven’t been mixing up their setlists each night they take the stage, instead sticking to a very similar script so far for their 2024 dates across Europe and the U.S. While that’s something we eventually hope to see from them after another album cycle, the next six months will mark an important stretch for DIIV with their tour schedule extending all the way through December and taking them back to the UK where a couple of sold-out gigs with Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. — another one of the rare major post-2010 rock acts to emerge — in London await.
The impending doom and gloom that Smith’s lyrics have been known to address since DIIV’s inception in 2011 don’t exactly anoint them as champions of hope and optimism at a time of great uncertainty and political tension here at home. Frog confronts the “overwhelmingly banal collapse of society under end-stage capitalism,” and with another U.S. presidential election looming that stars a former president and convicted felon, there’s a real cause for concern with the stakes higher than ever. The video interludes — one to advertise DIIV merch, another to introduce their sophomore single on Frog entitled “”Soul-net” and finally a satirical promo for ExxonMobil at the beginning of the encore — sprinkled in throughout the show reminded us of that dark reality, but as Bailey told Zane Lowe during a recent interview for Apple Music: “The message isn’t ‘the world is screwed and there’s nothing we can do.’ It’s more pointing out the fact that the world is screwed and heading toward demise … how do we accept that reality and still turn it into something positive?”
Smith, for one, has faced his own demons and past struggles with substance abuse that we don’t need to get into but has courageously come out on the other side all while continuing to push the boundaries sonically with every DIIV release. Frog, after all, was the first time the band worked democratically with writing credits going to all four members, challenging them individually and testing the strength of their collective bond in ultimately representing “a mesmeric testament to enduring.” For us fans, it’s just one sign of another great band in the making.
Setlist:
In Amber
Like Before You Were Born
Brown Paper Bag
Under the Sun
(Druun Pt. II)
Doused
Reflected
Somber the Drums
Take Your Time
Taker
Raining on Your Pillow
Soul-net
Frog in Boiling Water
Between Tides
Blankenship
Acheron
Encore:
Everyone Out
Horsehead
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