DIIV - Deceiver

On a week where there were any number of other exciting new records released, (which I'll be writing and posting my thoughts about on here over the coming days), DIIV's new album Deceiver was probably always going to be up against it. Still, I gave it a listen and here are my thoughts.

This is a band that have garnered no little attention, never mind notoriety over the last few years. The notoriety has mostly been nothing to do with their music. Drug related heroin chic instead, which will always impress some but frankly doesn't me on any level. The interest they've attracted in relation to the music they've put out is another matter entirely. Three decent albums and several worthwhile singles, over the last seven years.

Given what they went through during the making of last record, 2016's double Is The Is Are?, it's probably a bit surprising they're still with us at all. So for that we should be grateful as they're certainly not a bad band. But what does Deceiver have to offer? A series of peaks and flatlands really, difficult to review completely impartially for someone of my age.

That's because DIIV's is a deeply referential and indebted sound. Most obviously to the early Nineties Shoegaze scene, and most particularly indebted to My Bloody Valentine, Pale Saints and Ride, but also near contemporaries Smashing Pumpkins. I saw and listened to most of those first time round and can still recall the thrill of doing so echoing down the years all this time later.

Deceiver rarely if ever departs from this template. As a result it generally depends on the strength of the individual song as to whether it all comes off or not. Some tracks do cut the mustard, notably on Between Tides recent single Blankenship and epic closer Aceron. When they do hit their stride, DIIV can blow up something of a storm. I suppose it's hardly the bands fault that they've got the likes of me standing at the back of the auditorium, arms folded thinking ' Hang on, didn't I hear this in 1990?' Meanwhile the front few rows will be full of teenagers or twenty somethings experiencing this for the first time and being thrilled by the experience.

What does seem to be lacking is an ability to really engage the uncommitted listener. The lyrics are often buried in the mix and when they are discernible are abstract at best, what this often results in is piecemeal mix and match assemblies tailored almost entirely from the offcuts of Isn't Anything, Nowhere and Siamese Dream. Perfectly presentable. But quite lacking in terms of qualities of its own.

So while I drifted willingly along to Deceiver as I listened through to it from start to finish this morning, I was never either fully engaged or fully convinced. It's a record that deserves 7 out of 10 at most and despite the occasional palpable thrills it does serve up, you can't help thinking that DIIV, musically at least,  are coasting somewhat, and slightly cynically at that, and could certainly do better.