Deceiver

"Skin Game" and "Like Before You Were Born" display an added maturity to Smith's lyrical observations, while in having the caustic "Horsehead" and epic "Acheron" bookend the album, he's manage to create a musical novel that's painfully autobiographical yet triumphant in its execution.

Cole’s experiences in rehab became the inspiration for the group’s latest record, Deceiver, and while the album displays the group’s darkest sound yet, it also ends up being their most earnest.

It brings the friendly, familiar sound of a bygone time without begging for the clocks to veer into reverse, and clings to ‘90s noise-pop with the gentlest possible grip. It’s a show of strength too, proving the resilience of the band.

Smith has taken his time, and made mistakes, in comprehending what he’s been through. And Deceiver is all the more honest for it. Impressively, that doesn’t shine through intricate detailing but as something more abstract. Deceiver sounds like that experience, more than it describes it. And there’s hope at the end too.

The result is a success as both an artistic statement and a mea culpa. [Nov 2019, p.108]

On Deceiver, DIIV have done the work, and the results are new levels of emotional and musical depth.

Deceiver packs a much heavier punch than previous releases. Where Is the Is Are had an airier, spacey feeling throughout, Deceiver throws in heavy riffs and grungier distortion. Overall, Deceiver is an album that delivers on both the musical and lyrical sides.

Deceiver is his first truly clear-eyed artistic statement - it’s also his most mature.

It's dark subject matter — which makes grunge's famously gloomy sonic palette a particularly good fit for a record that's as beautiful as it is bleak.

It’s tempting to say that ‘Deceiver’ truly excels at its heaviest, given that these moments – the pitiless, piledriving chorus of ‘For The Guilty’; the heaving last gasp of feedback that roars through ‘Acheron’ – are the record’s most memorable. But it’s actually the more fragile moments on ‘Deceiver’ that ultimately prove to be the most emotionally resonant.

It plays like the last record’s darker shadow. As with every DIIV album, it sounds timestamped from the year that punk broke, but the mood is heavier, louder, queasier. The guitars jangle less and brood more.

Embracing their grungier influences, Deceiver marks a significant departure from DIIV's previously established brand of shoegaze. Tonally, the album may come to be seen as an outlier or turning point in the band's sound, but will certainly be held up as a solid addition to their discography.

Deceiver sees them return in a better mental state but with much the same spirit as when they left, delivering wafting waves of shimmering guitar over lyrics that hint at drama and turmoil. [Nov 2019, p.24]