STRANGE DAYS

How American indie band DIIV created a shoegaze soundtrack of societal collapse

- RICHIE ASSALY

Abrazen assassination attempt. A spiralling humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Dank memes about JD Vance and a couch. Climate disasters. Kamala IS brat.

In the chaotic heart of summer 2024, it's natural to wonder: How do we move through the exhausting news cycle without succumbing to cynicism or despair?

Few contemporary artists are as adept at reflecting the uneasy realities of this political moment - nor as comfortable wading into its distinct absurdity as the American rock band DIIV, whose fourth album "Frog in Boiling Water" is a soundtrack of a societal collapse; one that captures both the numbing banality of doomscrolling and the terrifying thrill of gazing into the abyss.

"It's like we're the band playing on the Titanic," joked frontman Zachary Cole Smith during a Zoom call ahead of DIIV's upcoming Toronto performance at the Concert Hall.

"As citizens, and as musicians, there's this sense of absolute powerlessness and it can be just crushing."

"Frog in Boiling Water" represents an effort to grapple with that sense of hopelessness.

"Making art for us is an exercise in trying to take control of what we have power over and what we can exert change on," said Smith.

"We can try to create a mirror of the world and expose it for what it is."

The result is a dark but thoroughly enjoyable record, one that finds deliverance through the distorted prism of '90s shoegaze.

On the sludgy lead single “Brown Paper Bag” — a song that pays homage to both the Melvins and My Bloody Valentine — the band moves through the muck of capitalist burnout, finding emotional release in a slow-motion guitar solo that drips like molten lava.