Ahead of the October 30 release of ZIRP! via Fantasy Recordings, DIIV have shared their latest single, “Trillions.” The track offers another glimpse into the band’s upcoming fifth album while revealing a noticeably pop-focused side of their sound, with the song co-written by British pop producer A. G. Cook.
“Trillions” arrives alongside a bombastic pop music video directed by Jaxon Whittington. Featuring a big house, wads of cash, flashy fast cars and DIIV frontman Zachary Cole Smith dressed in business suits, the visual plays with the line between fantasy and delusion, sincerity and satire. Whatever the answer may be, the song itself makes one thing clear: this is the most overtly pop DIIV have ever sounded.
The new single follows previously released tracks “Kid” and lead single “The Fountain.” The video for “Kid” was also directed by Whittington and shot by Zachary Cole Smith’s son, Roy, and his friend Julian. Earlier this week, DIIV performed to a packed room in New York City, where the band played songs from ZIRP! live for the first time.
With ZIRP!, DIIV introduce what they call The New Alternative, a genre built for the increasingly strange landscape of 21st-century music. The album embraces the band’s underground roots while leaning further into the pop instincts that have existed alongside them throughout their career.
The result is a record that brings together the harshness of shoegaze and grunge with the immediacy of memorable pop songwriting. DIIV — Zachary Cole Smith, Andrew Bailey, Colin Caulfield and Ben Newman — use ZIRP! to push beyond traditional genre boundaries while asking what it means for a band to grow up and evolve without abandoning the qualities that shaped its identity.
That evolution has been developing across DIIV’s catalog. Their 2024 album Frog In Boiling Water explored shoegaze, while 2019’s Deceiver leaned into grunge. As artists including Slayyyter, Eartheater and Turnstile continue to challenge traditional genre definitions, DIIV are placing themselves firmly within that broader movement with their idea of The New Alternative.
Produced by A. G. Cook, whose credits include work with Caroline Polachek and Charli XCX, ZIRP! expands on the themes of Frog In Boiling Water while approaching them with a newfound lightness. The album’s title references zero interest rate policies, which the band connects to a world of failed startups, increasingly fragmented culture and the rise of the “user.”
Those ideas become fuel for a collection of sparkling, tightly constructed pop songs. Album opener and lead single “The Fountain” combines the sprawling sound of earlier DIIV records with a jolting rhythmic guitar section that hints at arena-sized ambition. Across the album, the band focuses on punchier melodies and memorable hooks, pushing further toward the mainstream without abandoning its experimental instincts.
For Cook, the production process became less about radically reconstructing the band’s demos and more about understanding what made DIIV work as a live act.
“When I initially approached DIIV, it was in the spirit of destroying & rebuilding their demos, Screamadelica-style, into a finished product, but that hybrid, half-remix approach felt completely wrong to me,” Cook explains.
Instead, he immersed himself in the band’s live sound, attending shows and developing a clearer idea of where DIIV could go next.
“I became a bit obsessed with their live sound, and insisted on recording live drums before most of the songs were even finished. We spent a lot of time recording intricate guitar parts with specific guitar pedals, and as little time as possible doing anything on a computer, at least by my standards,” he says. “After a few rounds of that, ZIRP! emerged as a concept, and a sort of utopian, dystopian mantra. For me it became a vehicle to push the band into new territory.”
With “Trillions” adding another dimension to the album, DIIV are preparing to take ZIRP! on the road. The band will support Interpol on select dates across North America this October and will perform with Basement on October 20 at Shrine Expo Hall.
ZIRP! arrives October 30 via Fantasy Recordings, with “Trillions” available now. DIIV will continue to reveal more from the album ahead of its release.
DIIV: Instagram | YouTube | Facebook | X (Twitter) | TikTok