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Q MagazineJan 27, 2014There's a potent '80s smoke machine-ambiance wafting through the plush, slow-fizz synths and padded percussion that fill their debut full-length. [Oct 2013, p.100]
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Aug 19, 2013It's an odd assemblage, but it succeeds at putting DIANA into a rare league--a band poised to not only meet expectations head on, but to exceed them.
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Aug 16, 2013It’s much more in line with Shabason and Adams’s work on Destroyer’s soft rock epic Kaputt, with its smooth sax, jazzy rhythms and 80s synth pop, but Elle’s breathy voice meshes remarkably well.
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Aug 13, 2013This is a glacially beautiful album that you’ll do well to spend a lot of time with.
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Aug 13, 2013Following through on both the gleaming productions of 1980s pop and the evocative murk of the short-lived trendlet called witch house, Diana creates larger-than-life soundscapes where private musings can flourish.
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Aug 23, 2013There are enough explosive moments to suggest that DIANA have another gear to explore.
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Aug 21, 2013Throughout, songwriters Joseph Shabason and Kieran Adams create unique beat and synth driven pop songs, all tinged with themes of love, longing, and renouncement.
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Aug 21, 2013Perpetual Surrender is an ambitious album that delivers on numerous levels, though it can sometimes sound a bit like a TV stuck on constant re-run. But just as that’s enjoyable in its own way, so are DIANA in theirs.
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Aug 19, 2013Perpetual Surrender's highlights might have had more impact if they were collected on an EP, but DIANA have a unique enough perspective--and enough potential--to make the album worth a listen for anyone who loves synth pop in any of its incarnations.
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Aug 19, 2013They lose points, however, for a descent into guitar squall and full-on ‘Baker Street’ sax (‘Perpetual Surrender’), which mar an otherwise intriguing debut.
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Aug 16, 2013Though they won't repeat the trick, Diana plunder '80s-aping blog-pop and find surprising riches in a long washed-out gold mine.
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UncutAug 13, 2013A potential Urban Outfitters house band, yes, but very far from just brainless cool. [Sep 2013, p.87]
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Aug 13, 2013Their debut is yearning blog-pop, which might be a bit ‘2009 called...’ if songs like ‘New House’ weren’t just as sharp as their 80s, sax-ballad ancestors.
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Aug 19, 2013While there are sublime moment, too often style wins out over substance.
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Aug 19, 2013Neither engaging enough to be exhilarating, nor boisterous enough to be obnoxious, Perpetual Surrender simply gazes at its shoes without making much of an impression at all.
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Aug 22, 2013An enjoyable yet essentially average release that plays it very safe, sticking close to preconceptions and relative “rules” of electro/synth pop without straying too far from the groundwork set down by the figures from another era it quotes and, to some degree, replicates.
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Aug 16, 2013In many ways Perpetual Surrender is the average British weather forecast; patchy, dull and cloudy with occasional sunny spells. Room for improvement.