The second great album of 2022 that I’ve picked up from Alcopop! Records so far. On the back of January’s superb release This is My World from Helen Love, comes the debut album from DITZ, in the shape of The Great Regression, an album title which is unerringly accurate for the dystopian post Brexit times we are currently living through.
Brooding
An entirely different beast from the Helen Love album, DITZ produce an unsettling blend of abrasive post punk, mixed with often vicious and seemingly threatening metal guitar grooves and riffs, nigh on industrial in places. Elsewhere the mood is much more brooding, on the likes of Instinct, with a low key vocal backed by an equally low key, but incessant guitar line, the song does, however, rise to a cacophonous clamouring finale.
The Great Regression opens with a high energy intensity in the shape of Clocks, post punk guitars riffing at pace, turning heavier and more menacing, swapping between the two throughout, dark coercive moments jousting with jagged glitchy riffs. Ded Wurst is almost Killing Joke-like in its initial thunderous goth/punk intro, a dark vampiric glamour providing the listener with an uneasy sense of foreboding. 24 hour news and the sensationalisation of events is explored in Summer of the Shark with lyrics empathising with Elvis and his habit of shooting TVs.
Ominous
One of the bands singles from the album I Am Kate Moss is another of the songs with a slow ominous build the initial lyric of ”I cut a striking figure” repeated almost nonchalantly before the seeming ambivalence is replaced by a seething energy rise and compelling guitars change the feel entirely as Cal spits out ”And it cuts me back…”
The album never loses sight of its darkly vibrant intensity, closing almost as it began with No Thanks, I’m Full switching between angular post punk riffing and a full on aural assault on the eardrums.
An impressive debut with DITZ adding their voice to the impressive array of young guitar heavy bands plying their trade these days
DITZ – Bandcamp – Alcopop Bandcamp