Brighton noiseniks DITZ seem to have been around for ages, so it’s hard to believe that Never Exhale is only album number two, following the critically adored debut The Great Regression, which landed back in 2022, and since then they have been almost constantly on tour, either headlining or playing big support roles to the likes of IDLES (who they played with on their 2024 European tour), either way honing the tracks that make up this record.
It starts instrumentally with the scene-setting ‘V70′, then straight into the hypnotic chug that is one of the best singles of last year in the form of ‘Taxi Man‘, a relentlessly catchy riff and chorus of “I get back into the car and I tell him to keep on driving”, only pausing to let the metaphorical taxi wail like it is about to take off, one of the many weird and wonderful hard-hitting guitar laden flourishes that are scattered across the ten songs here.
The already released starburst of ‘Space/Smile’ keeps up the exhausting pace whilst ‘Senor Siniestro’ sees the gloom that cuts through each track seeping through. ‘I feel like death, I wonder if he feels like me too’ , just before the crashing drums elevate it out of the sewers, but there’s a claustrophobic feel which hangs over it.
New single ‘Four‘ is more straightforward, all sleazy, juddering noise, before ‘God on A Speed Dial’ brings forth the second huge riff of side one, evoking thoughts of just how big this is going to be in a live environment, an important factor as DITZ are already regarded as an immense live band, frontperson Cal being a lithe presence onstage (even though a lot of their time is spent but off it, they’re more at home on a lightning rig, in the crowd or up a speaker stack).
‘Smells Like Something Died In Here’ is as bleak as the title would have you believe, its sparseness adding to the murkiness, and you realise that the record is flying by by the seat of its pants, it’s a breathless ride, it’s like it’s excited to get done, there’s no ‘verse, chorus, bridge’ set-up here, it’s at times that they are trying to make it somewhat impenetrable but a listen or two is enough to get to the heart of it.
There’s no filler here, no let-up as the album proceeds, and of the closing tracks, such as the punishingly brutal obtuse rock-out of ‘18 Wheeler’ with it’s multitude of false endings, which manages to make the succeeding ‘The Body Is A Structure‘ sound almost commercial, but nothing prepares for the closing seven-minute magnum opus ‘Britney’, and this more than anything else shows the massive moon-boot shaped steps that have been made from that debut record, its chant of “we build and we build and we build” sounds like a cult, albeit an extraordinarily uplifting one, before bursting into a stompy jam, I can only imagine the profound effect it is going to have on their live audience.
It’s bleak and cold, chillingly so at times, but every subsequent listen will locate something else of interest each time, and the joy of it will reveal itself. If you’re a fan of those who have influenced DITZ (the likes of METZ, Jesus Lizard and Shellac) or those that have had them as support, then you’re instantly gonna love it, well maybe not instantly, but love it all the same.
