Last fall we were pleasantly surprised to see DIIV open Depeche Mode’s Boston show on Halloween, and secretly hoped it meant more of the Brooklyn band in 2024. Turns out we didn’t have to wait too long, as Zachary Cole Smith and the boys last week announced new album Frog in Boiling Water, four years in the making and out May 24 via Fantasy Records, and an expansive, slow-burning lead single titled “Brown Paper Bag.” The deliberate post-‘gaze track channels lyrical themes of dejection and angst into something sonically beautiful and warm.
“The way we see it, it’s both a pop song and a sludgy song, a country song and a shoegaze song, a dreamy song and a decidedly ’90s ‘rock’ song,” the band writes on Insta. “While the rest of the record focuses on the larger external world, this one dwells on a specific internal experience of living in it: What does this world feel like sometimes? Ever feel like a brown paper bag?”
Pre-order Frog in Boiling Water here, and allow “Brown Paper Bag” to wash over via the official visualizer below.