Some albums sound like they've been chewed up and spat out. The latest from DITZ, Never Exhale, is one of them. It carries the duality between the road's grime and performance adrenaline into an album full of tension, ready to rupture. On April 7, that energy might explode in Bucharest as DITZ comes to Control Club.
Brighton-based DITZ never intended to make their second album like this. The plan was a recording stint in the U.S., but then IDLES came knocking with a tour slot, and suddenly, the record had to wait. DITZ’s connection to IDLES extends beyond the tour. Like Heavy Lungs, they channel that same high-velocity energy. Ultimately, Never Exhale was hammered together in the stolen hours between stops; its songs took form across borrowed practice spaces. When DITZ finally got to London's Holy Mountain studio in the dead of winter, Never Exhale had already been well-tested, barely needing a final form.
The opener, Taxi Man, revs its engine first, giving you a second to take in the night air before the headlights hit you. A song about judgment—divine or otherwise—half-taunting, half-threatening. "I see the taxi man doing taxidermy in the front seat while he's driving me around. I don't know where I'm going, I just wanna be gone." The image is surreal, even grotesque. It's also eerily fitting for a fever dream of such uncertainty. DITZ habitually builds menace as their songs are rarely static; their rhythms designed for propulsion. Space/Smile barrels in next, clocking in under two bruising minutes without wasting time explaining itself.
Four swings between sneer and serrated distortion, wrapped in a critique of queer commodification. But it’s not a lecture. DITZ simply pose questions and spit out provocations. It's the listener who is forced to sit in discomfort. Who gets to own identity? Who profits? Would figures like Divine or Turing find themselves in corporate rainbow capitalism, and if so, how would they feel about it?
Never Exhale doesn’t rely solely on brute force, though. Señor Siniestro slows the pulse with a song about ageing, decay, and the slow creep of existential dread. There’s really no attempt at catharsis. Definitely no easy release. Instead, it leaves the question: “I feel like Death. I wonder if he feels like me too?” lingers long after it ends.
The most surprising moment of the album, however, comes last. At nearly eight minutes, britney stretches DITZ into something much more vast and, dare I say it, "cinematic." It’s where comparisons to Mogwai and Radiohead make most sense— the love of abrasive noise meets an unexpected sense of grandeur. For a record that rarely stops for breath, letting this breathe as they do feels almost defiant.
If their debut, The Great Regression, was a tightly wound burst of frustration, Never Exhale is its more road-worn sibling. The unhinged force of Unwound, the wiry tension of Fugazi, and the off-kilter nihilism of Scratch Acid all remain in spirit, but DITZ wields them differently on Never Exhale. This isn't a record remotely concerned with perfection. It’s restless and sometimes physically exhausting. But DITZ isn’t here to polish edges; they’re here to keep pushing, provoking, and pummeling.
