Is the Is Are

by 
AlbumFeb 05 / 201617 songs, 1h 3m 27s
Dream Pop Post-Punk Indie Surf
Popular

Shimmering, immersive, and buoyed by a light sense of melancholy throughout, *Is the Is Are* is filled with stunning purpose, distilling the jangly shoegaze outfit’s early sound into something atmospheric but focused—despite its palatial, 17-track length. Highlights (including “Dopamine,” “Is the Is Are,” and the aching “Mire (Grant’s Song)”) don’t break the mood so much as surface like moments of clarity in the middle of a dream.

Is the Is Are, the highly-anticipated sophomore release from Brooklyn-based DIIV, is an album years and many personal struggles in the making for it's architect, Zachary Cole Smith. Recorded and mixed in various locations in Brooklyn, it showcases everything you know and love about DIIV, and many things you did not, all with an added nuance and depth. It is a 17-song, double-album statement intended to resonate with its audience in much the same way that Bad Moon Rising or Tago Mago has for Smith himself. An extension and deepening of the musical ideas first expressed on 2012's critically-lauded Oshin, Is the Is Are yields a multiplicity of textures, lyrical themes, and moods. It is a more diverse world than Oshin, with different parameters and ideals. Dark and honest to a fault, the new songs are dynamic, loud, quiet, sad; they are songs that hiss and snarl; songs that, as Smith wrote recently, represent "the real me." Smith’s vocals, too, are much closer to the foreground, layered legibly on top of tidal waves of shimmering guitar and melodic bass weaving in and out, leaving a distinct and indelible imprint.

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8.1 / 10

DIIV's long-awaited follow-up to Oshin is not the radical break in style that Zachary Cole Smith had promised: While it's mostly about getting high and it sounds exactly like DIIV, it finds more interesting ways to do both of those things. Call it Requiem for a Dream-pop, dedicated to a gorgeous yet unglamorous portrayal of addiction.

6 / 10

8 / 10

Diiv return from the chaos to throw their hat into the ring for 2016's finest rock release.

8.7 / 10

The intention of Is the Is Are is nothing short of messianic. Zach Cole Smith can't seem to talk about the record without…

Check out our album review of Artist's Is the Is Are on Rolling Stone.com.

On ‘Is The Is Are’, everything carries more meaning; he’s well and truly made his point here.

Considering the troubles DIIV went through after the release of their debut album Oshin -- chief among them Zachary Cole Smith's 2013 arrest for drug possession -- it's somewhat miraculous that they made another album, much less one as consistently good as Is the Is Are.

Zachary Cole Smith's second full-length is a sprawling continuation of DIIV's twinkling debut – there's just so much of it. Could less have been more?

8 / 10

In the lead-up to the release of DIIV's second full-length, most of the attention has been placed on either the band's substance problems (s...

8.0 / 10

Three and a half years have passed since the release of DIIV's excellent debut, Oshin, (not an unreasonable amount of time) and it appears from the sheer size of Is The Is Are that the band has certainly been hard at work: 17 tracks all under six minutes

5 / 10

With soundscapes that are as expansive as they are immersive, DIIV brandish an immediately infectious brand of melodic dream pop, underpinned by pounding

4 / 10

8.0 / 10

'Is This Are' by DIIV, album review by Eric Stevens. DIIV'S 2nd full-length comes out on February 5th via Captured Tracks. The first single is "Dopamine".

Diiv’s new album is too long and sticks too closely to one style, but after a while you realise that’s probably the point

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Album Reviews: DIIV – Is The Is Are

5 / 10