DIIV: "Dopamine"
Do you get sick of watching the sun rise? Probably not, even though it looks pretty much the same every time, an orange glow coming up over the horizon before a big ball of fire burns out the night. It’s pretty special for something that happens like clockwork. The same could be said of the best DIIV songs, of which “Dopamine” is most certainly a strong candidate. The first single released from their sophomore album Is the Is Are, “Dopamine” is not out of step with the guitar twinklers that made up much of their debut, Oshin, modern rock’n’roll at its most pleasantly primal. But this song is tighter, punchier, and quicker, the drums propelling it at a sprinter’s pace through its four minutes. The production is precise, which makes the purposeful muddiness of the songwriting itself, with its bisecting layers of vocal and guitar, easy to wade into, as though the whole thing were one big shiny light bath.
DIIV’s Zachary Cole Smith has made no secret of his recent troubles in music (a scrapped batch of recordings produced by ex-Girls bassist JR White) and life (a pile of serious drugs and the attendant problems those bring). Whether or not writing songs like “Dopamine” was part of his cathartic process, it certainly sounds like it. It also feels like a sad reflection on substance abuse, with lyrics like the fairly literal, fiendish, “I’m fixing now to mix the white with the brown,” before the kicker, where he spits, “I got so high I finally felt like myself.” The song dies with that bummer of a revelation. It’s not new territory for Smith, just a little more complex. New DIIV songs don’t come every morning, but when they do, they’re pretty special.
Recent Comments