Despite a quarrelsome four year writing process, shoegaze band DIIV have emerged on the other side with their haunting new studio album, “Frog In Boiling Water” via Fantasy Records.
The 10 track record produced by Chris Coady references “The Boiling Frog” in Daniel Quinn’s The Story of B.
DIIV explains, “If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.”
This metaphor the band likens to, “a slow, sick, and overwhelmingly banal collapse of society under end-stage capitalism, the brutal realities we’ve maybe come to accept as normal. That’s the boiling water and we are the frogs.”
In celebration of the record, Andrew Bailey, Colin Caulfield, Ben Newman, and Zachary Cole Smith reunited to embark on a 33 city tour. On August 5, DIIV arrived at Boston’s Royale with Horse Jumper of Love.
Although the tour has already wrapped in Brooklyn on August 7, you can listen to “Frog In Boiling Water,” a project that pushes the bounds of shoegaze and once challenged the bands friendships, finances, and egos.