Shoegaze band DIIV has shared his first new music in three years. “Skin Game”, off their upcoming LP, ‘Deceiver’ (October 4), is brings forth a completely reimagined version of DIIV— one much brighter and not one shrouded behind terse walls of reverb and intense musical distortion.
2016 saw the release of their sophomore endevour, Is There Are, but the band fell off the radar a bit between then and now, touring a few times here and there but mostly staying hidden. Is There Are was by all accounts an indie dreampop album; it has all the features of a bedroom-produced number, complete with overprocessed, distant vocals and a hazy dust of reverb. This is not to say it wasn’t good— most songs on the album were absolutely infectious despite their gloom, catchy despite the melancholy.
But “Skin Game” is a completely different ballgame. It is clean, reinvisioned, refreshed, bringing in vocalist Zachary Cole Smith’s wonderfully personable songwriting with a renewed intensity, finding a fresh start in soft vocals with a Sonic Youth-style melody that leaves behind an over-reliance on shadow, crossfeed and reverb.
“I spent six months in several different rehab facilities,” Smith said in a recent press release. “I was living with other addicts. Being a recovering addict myself, there are a lot of questions like, ‘Who are we? What is this disease?’” The lyrics, subsequently, took shape to reflect this. “I can see you’ve had some struggles lately / Hey man I’ve had mine too,” he sings.
The band has also announced a string of Fall and Winter tour dates to support the new album, and is set to bring along Chastity, a punk band from Canada. See all dates below, and find tickets here.
DIIV ‘Deceiver’ Tour Dates:
10/12–10/27 w/ Chastity
Oct-11-13 Perris, CA Desert Daze
Sat-Oct-12 Phoenix, AZ The Rebel Lounge
Mon-Oct-14 Austin, TX Mohawk
Tue-Oct-15 Houston, TX Satellite
Wed-Oct-16 Dallas, TX Canton Hall
Fri-Oct-18 Chicago, IL Logan Square Auditorium
Sat-Oct-19 Detroit, MI Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
Sun-Oct-20 Cleveland, OH Phantasy
Tue-Oct-22 Boston, MA Paradise
Wed-Oct-23 Philadelphia. PA Underground Arts
Thu-Oct-24 Brooklyn, NY Warsaw
Sun-Oct-27 Washington, DC Black Cat
Thu-Dec-05 San Diego, CA Belly Up
Fri-Dec-06 San Luis Obispo, CA SLO Guild
Sat-Dec-07 Santa Cruz, CA Catalyst
Sun-Dec-08 San Francisco, CA Fillmore
Tue-Dec-10 Seattle, WA Crocodile
Wed-Dec-11 Portland, OR Revolution Hall
