Shoegaze mainstays DIIV have returned with plans for their first record since 2019's Deceiver. Frog in Boiling Water arrives May 24 via Fantasy Records, and the band have shared a preview today with new single "Brown Paper Bag."
“If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out," the band explained of the album's title — which references Daniel Quinn’s The Story of B — in a statement.
"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.”
They continued:
We understand the metaphor to be one about 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. The album is more or less a collection of snapshots from various angles of our modern condition which we think highlights what this collapse looks like and, more particularly, what it feels like.
The album is said to have "taxed [DIIV's] bonds and brotherhood, pushing themselves to the brink as a band and as buds," with vocalist Zachary Cole Smith contending with raising an infant and "how [he could] lyrically conjure a dystopia with a newborn in the house, or pair the new hope he had with an honest assessment of the world he knew."
"Brown Paper Bag" is the first taste of what's to come. You can listen to it below, where you'll also find the record's tracklist.
Frog in Boiling Water:
1. In Amber
2. Brown Paper Bag
3. Raining On Your Pillow
4. Frog In Boiling Water
5. Everyone Out
6. Reflected
7. Somber the Drums
8. Little Birds
9. Soul-net
10. Fender on the Freeway