DIIV has been working on a new album for more than 4 years, which they finally announced today under the title ‘Frog in Boiling Water’. Its launch, scheduled for May 24, will mark the achievement of a group that was almost destroyed during its creation process. To celebrate, they have already released ‘Brown Paper Bag’, the first preview of the album.
The reality is that Andrew Bailey, Colin Caulfield, Ben Newman and Zachary Cole Smith had difficulties in carrying out what is their fourth album. This is what they recognize, revealing that they almost broke up before finishing the album. Aiming to push their sound and make music that challenged them, the journey they had to take caused “relationships between them to deteriorate, with the complex dynamics of family, friendship and finances entangled, along with suspicions, resentments , wounded egos and distressing questions.
The album, which DIIV describes as a “hypnotic testament to resistance,” is made up of a total of 10 songs. The “challenging sound” they allude to comes from Chris Coady, who has been responsible for producing ‘Frog in Boiling Water’. This is reflected in ‘Brown Paper Bag’, an experimental song that plays with calm rock.
«If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, of course it will frantically try to get out. But if you gently place it in a pot of warm water and turn the heat to low, the frog will sink into a peaceful torpor, just like one of us in a hot bath, and soon, with a smile on his face, “he will let himself boil to death without resistance,” says DIIV about the album, whose title refers to ‘The Boiling Frog’ by Daniel Quinn in The Story of B.
His explanation continues: “We understand the metaphor to be about a slow, sickening, and overwhelmingly banal collapse of society under end-stage capitalism, the brutal realities that we may have come to accept as normal. It’s boiling water and we are the frogs. “The album is more or less a collection of snapshots from various angles of our modern condition that we believe highlights what this collapse looks like and, more particularly, what it feels like.”
This is the tracklist for ‘Frog in Boiling Water’:
1. In Amber
2. Brown Paper Bag
3. Raining On Your Pillow
4. Frog In Boiling Water
5. Everyone Out
6.Reflected
7. Hat the Drums
8. Little Birds
9. Soul-net
10. Fender on the Freeway
