DITZ - The Hope and Ruin Brighton 25/3/2022

​

​

Since their incipience, Brighton-based band DITZ, has been a name constantly shaking up and making waves throughout the UK punk scene. From the release of their very first explosive EP back in 2016, DITZ has been carefully crafting a hair-raising arsenal of blustering, industrial rage. Now with the release of their highly-anticipated debut album ‘The Great Regression’ finally here, DITZ travelled around the UK showing off their beautiful, unapologetic newborn. Stopping off at their hometown, the Alcopop! signed band returned to play a set at Brighton’s notorious The Hope & Ruin.

 

Straight off the back of two exhilarating performances by Codex Serafina and Toast, DITZ went into this with everything. Opening up with their track ‘Clocks’, the Brighton quintet teases you with a lightened vibrant guitar, for anyone unfamiliar with DITZ you might think you’ve stumbled into some joyful indie band and start wondering what all the fuss is about. Before you know it you’ve been kicked into the haunting depths of trenches that the bass starts to dig out. With biting energy, filled with chaos and catharsis, it’s impossible to stand still, especially with DITZ’s infectious on-stage energy. With singles like ‘Ded Würst’ and ‘I Am Kate Moss’, DITZ lure you in pulling you closer and closer before drowning you in pits of noise.

 

Lead singer Cal Francis paints meandering vocal melodies along shattered paths, wearily winding and dragging along in an eerie deadpan tone. As the rest of the band punches through, then so do the vocals. Transforming into striking, volcanic growls. Harrowing screaming is conjured by the guitars, a wall of noise and piercing feedback creates a brooding, bleeding backdrop for fitting cyclical lyricism. With genre-bending drums that cascade with a tearing fury, turning into a mechanical whirling, to an almost electronic dancing rhythm.

 

Although this was a tour for their debut album ‘The Great Regression’, the band hasn’t forgotten about their older, much-loved singles that have gotten them to where they are. Playing their beloved ‘Role Model’, Cal strolls into the crowd, sets the mic down in the middle of the room and lets the rest of the band play. Repeatedly whispering  “I'm a stickler for role models my own age” a spine-tingling sliding drop impales through, followed by an explosion of crushing visceral energy. With DITZ’s music, there is distinctive violent aggression that is so deeply entwined within, materialised by a response to the violence they’ve been subject to. With tracks that wrestle with homophobic bigotry to the confines of being trapped in jobs that tediously trudge along, confined to waiting for the sweet release of clocking out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

 

Despite the name of the album, DITZ has shown off an incredible level of growth since the birth of its first EP. Meticulously crafting viscerally charged post-punk drowning in furying dissonance.