DIIV - ZIRP!

The shift from the New York band's previous full-length, Frog in Boiling Water, is immediately apparent. Where that album was liquid and contemplative, as if DIIV were drowning in their sorrows, ZIRP! is cold, crisp, and unforgivingly high-res. Such a drastic change seems to have freed them from any preconceptions about their music: "The Fountain" may still be rooted in shoegaze, but its brittle, staccato distortion conjures the image of the band putting their old style through a shredder. Another of the record's most striking and successful experiments, "Dare Me," updates the classic, Loveless-like pairing of twisting guitars and baggy beats with a sinking unease that's decidedly 21st century.

This tension between ZIRP!'s playful sound-shaping and its serious subject matter uncovers some surprising new angles on protest music. "Trillions" is the album's satirical pop peak. A piece of shiny synth pop that feels like an AI version of the Postal Service, it delivers Auto-Tuned dreams of owning art that "no one else can see" with an inhuman sparkle. DIIV also make skillful use of the contrast between Zachary Cole Smith's feathery vocals and the weight of the things he sings about. On "The Crash," he can murmur "I think I finally understand how bad it really is" because the glitchy synths and nu-metal guitars do the shouting for him. At once lulling and discomforting, "Kid"'s mesmerizing wish to hide from "your feelings or something you did" taps into a universal, childlike pain. And when Cole Smith sings "happiness feels like another lifetime" on "When the Glow Came for Us," individual depression and broader generational malaise bleed into each other indistinguishably.

Even if ZIRP!'s experiments don't always pay off, DIIV have attempted something genuinely different. If this is their bid for mainstream popularity -- ironic or otherwise -- it's led them to some of their most daring and confrontational music. ~Heather Phares, allmusic.com