A year after ‘Frog in Boiling Water‘, DIIV return with their first new release – ‘Return of Youth‘, a quietly devastating single that trades widescreen collapse for something far more personal.
Unsurprisingly, the track is a masterclass in shoegaze’s more delicate corners: layered, intimate, and full of restraint. It’s a noticeable shift from the chaos and corrosion that coloured FIBW. Where that record was concrete weight and cold surfaces, ‘Return of Youth’ opens a window. The pendulum has swung – from macro panic to micro tenderness.
Written before the birth of frontman Zachary Cole Smith’s first child, ‘Return of Youth‘ carries all the weight of those quietly seismic moments – when the big existential questions give way to something closer, something simpler. But when wildfires tore through Altadena earlier this year, destroying Smith’s home as he prepared for the arrival of his second child, the song took on new meaning.
“I imagined seeing myself through the eyes of my child,” Smith wrote in a personal statement accompanying the track. “A rebirth of sorts, laced with fear and insecurity, discovering beauty and serenity together in the simplest places.”
That imagined peace is broken by reality in the track’s video, which documents the wreckage left behind by the Californian fires. It’s a stark counterpoint to the song’s softness – home videos set against the backdrop of irreversible loss.
DIIV will tour across Australia this June with appearances at Nipaluna/Hobart’s Dark Mofo and Eora/Sydney’s Vivid festivals, before heading to the EU and UK in August for a run of headline and festival dates including End Of The Road and Paredes de Coura. Ahead of it all, they’ll play three nights in LA, performing ‘Frog in Boiling Water‘ in full.
Photo Credit: Coley Brown
