Die!Die!Die! - Die!Die!Die!

Die!Die!Die!’s self titled album feels like it’s been a long time coming – in the past twelve months the band has taken their maniacal live show to most corners of the country as well as their native New Zealand. Their Myspace page reveals an amusingly hectic touring schedule, in which Australia, New Zealand and the US are all pretty much covered in the space of less than two months.

Die!Die!Die! could serve as posterchildren for Ritalin advertisements. Fittingly, it seems everything they do is punctuated with an exclamation mark. The album is no different. Free from the hubbub of a live setting, Die!Die!Die! is razor-sharp and stunningly engaging. It’s fun and scary simultaneously – kind of like watching some insane daredevil friend shimmy up the flagpole at school. Although aesthetically, much of the material appears recklessly messy and spontaneous, there’s a mathematical precision underlying most of the tracks. Intro track Like 48th St, Maybe? kicks off the proceedings with a rumble of march-like drum rolls and increasing distortion, but despite this lead-up Disappear Here still arrives from left field. The production is kept uniquely heavy on the rhythm section, often lighter on guitars and filler-free, and with the tracks kept to impossibly brief standards, it’s easy to get swept up in this album’s momentum.

Auckland is Burning sounds like a cheeky schoolyard take on a classic, but it’s a more sinister affair laden with an unnerving bassline and a snare beat that richochets mercilessly. With Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Mikey, the vocals sound painfully strained and the band appears to be on the cusp of losing control. They’re not – this is just the DDD way of doing things. Ashtray! Ashtray! Is the album’s most dance-rock friendly number, but again, this isn’t the Artic Monkeys – Die! Die! Die!’s material is kept just slightly and endearingly inaccessible. The lyrics taunt amid the frenzied screaming, and guitar distortion melds perfectly into sticcatto slices of drum breaks. The band strut their impressive collective chemistry with the stuttering L.A. Bones, but it’s in Shyness Will Get You Nowhere that the band have received the most recognition – radio and otherwise – for. It’s slightly more indie-rock than the remainder of their tracks, lolling over unusually clean, catchy basslines and jangly guitars but punctuated by those trademark paranoid, screamed vocals. Again, you’re only granted two minutes to be taken with this song before it’s snatched away, but when this method so clearly works for DDD, why risk changing it?

It has to be said: it is rather strange listening to the album without having the necessary visual element that a DDD live show brings. Although most of that energy translates onto disc, there is some elusive element that appears to have been sucked out along the way. On the other hand, Die!Die!Die! the album is an excellent marketing tool – after one listen you’ll find you’re dying to catch these guys live.