DIIV, Is The Is Are (Captured Tracks Records)
If you were familiar with the vibe of “C86” (the cassette-tape compilation released by the British New Musical Express magazine in 1986), you had a head start in digging on the hazy, sloppily arranged dream-pop of Oshin, the 2012 debut LP from this Brooklyn indie band led by singer-guitarist Zachary Cole Smith. Another way to say it would be “Howard Shore meets Joy Division, with half the melodic calories,” in other words Jesus & Mary Chain throwbackism done, apparently, just for the sake of it. I do like Smith’s attitude (he abandoned the band’s possibly copyrighted original name, Dive, because he seriously didn’t care what the band’s name was). Opener “Out of Mind” offers Raveonettes vocals over New Order-style rubber-band crook-legging, while “Under the Sun” evokes early Cure, a slam-dunk aesthetic that should get the band more love from Pitchfork (keeping in mind that if they’re mean to this album, Smith could always take a bus across town to Pitchfork HQ and beat their heads in). B