Since their debut in 2005, Die! Die! Die! has blended a powerful and infectious concoction of post-punk, noise pop, shoegaze, lo-fi, and punk rock into one massive sounding whole. Fresh for a global pandemic outbreak, the trio returns in its original lineup for their most urgent and well-honed album to date, This Is Not An Island Anymore. Since recording their debut album with Steve Albini (Shellac, Nirvana, PJ Harvey) in Chicago in 2005, Die! Die! Die! have worked with producers including Shayne Carter, Nick Roughan (The Skeptics), Chris Townend (Violent Femmes), and have written and recorded albums in New York, Dunedin, London and rural France.
…Synonymous in their early days with scathingly personal punk anthems, Die! Die! Die!’s…
…outrage surveys broader and more ambitious territory on their seventh studio album This Is Not an Island Anymore. Founding fathers guitarist / singer Andrew Wilson and drummer Michael Prain with long term bassist Lachlan Anderson sound like a tumble dryer full of Steelo pads on the title track opener, locked in and furiously focussed throughout the record’s nine noise-drenched tracks — with sonically free-form interlude ‘Takaparawhau’ providing space to breathe before the next intense barrage of guitars / drums and piercing yells. Which isn’t to say there isn’t room for inventiveness on This Is Not an Island Anymore, finding the trio mainly jettisoning melodic impulses this time around for interlocking, stuttering AmRep heavy grooves, buzzsaw guitars and no wave squalls, even incorporating wild sax (on ‘Never Tire Looking at the Sun’), spoken word and shortwave radio bursts into their cacophonous aural palette. — undertheradar.co.nz