After the release of album Never Exhale at the start of the year, DITZ return with a 9 minute, three-part noise-rock epic new single ‘Don Enzo Magic Carpet Salesman’, and it marks a bold new direction for the band. Fierce, hypnotic and unpredictable, it captures their live energy in full force, and comes with additional track ‘Kalimba Song’.
Both will be also be available on a limited edition 12” on 28th November via City Slang Records, with the first copies sold exclusively on their upcoming tour ahead of this date.
Vocalist C.A. Francis says of the new single, “Don Enzo began as a demo Jack Looker made after our touring wrapped early in the year. It started as one short movement, but after I added lyrics and sent it back, he returned it with five more minutes of music, creating a three-part structure. The song reflects my frustration with AI art – the first part reacting to the issue, the second written from the AI’s perspective, and the final section representing the last gasp of real art before being overwhelmed by artificial output.”
Have you ever been in a tense situation where you have to remind yourself to breathe? When panic makes you hold your breath for so long that your body locks into place? When the tension is wound up like a jack-in-the-box just short of popping open?
Apparently, that’s what DITZ were experiencing when making their sharp sophomore album Never Exhale. The opening notes of “V70” instantly drop that tension on you, like some kind of rumbling alarm warning you to get back before you get hurt, because the razor-sharp guitar and snarling bass-driven “Taxi Man” might knock you off your feet. It’s an homage to the working class and how often the people you barely notice are holding the world together. “Space / Smile” is almost a manic rant about hatred and division hidden behind friendly faces.
“This house has no place in your future…Wake up and see what you built will never last!” yells lead singer Cal Francis on “Senor Siniestro” – a wild exploration of what’s real (almost nothing) and what’s impermanent (everything). I love Sam Evans‘ beats on “Four,” which start simple and grow into post-punk precision. Anton Mocock and Jack Looker‘s guitars on “God on a Speed Dial” sound like the hulls of ships being torn open by sea mines while Francis wonders how to be heard by something or someone beyond this world.
They take on the weird inevitable nature (Or is it threat?) of aging on “Smells Like Something Died in Here.” The guitars sigh as if they’re settling down for a long rest that might not end. “18 Wheeler” is the sound of madness bubbling under the surface that cracks through the ice now and then. It almost sounds like each band member is playing their own solo and barely paying attention to the others at times, and it still works well.
Caleb Remnant‘s bass leads “The Body As a Structure” – a song about finding comfort in your own skin while the world shakes around you. The album ends with the left-turn slow-down of “Britney” – which is also the longest song on the album at nearly seven-and-a-half minutes. Evans’ hi-hat at first sounds like it’s wrapped in cotton, and the guitar chords merge with dark synths to create something unsettling as Francis chants “We build and we build and we build.” again and again in the song’s second half, pulling us into a head-spinning nightmare.
You don’t get many breaths with this album. It grabs you and holds you in place, sometimes with fascination and other times with paranoia. DITZ wants you to take a breath, but not to relax.
