DIIV has announced a new album, ZIRP!, dropping on October 30, 2026, and with it has come a new genre called the New Alternative. What exactly does that mean? Well, it somehow ties into the album title acronym, “zero interest-rate policy,” and vocalist/guitarist Zachary Cole Smith’s recent interest in dressing like a “recession-era, stock market crash guy.”
While speaking with The Guardian in an August 2026 feature, Smith wore thick glasses, a pinstriped shirt, and a tie adorned with stock market symbols. His hair was slicked back in a sort of Patrick Bateman pantomime, but the costume was more disgraced stockbroker than homicidal investment banker. Smith also described the thought process behind the look.
“We’re trying to have a visual language, which is fun,” he said. “We’ve never done that with what we wear.”
The whole concept of ZIRP!, it seems, extends to every aspect of DIIV’s creative process. The band is already beloved for their shoegazey experiments, drawing from unexpected influences for both sound and lyrics. Their 2024 album Frog in Boiling Water delved into the ennui of anti-capitalist ideology, which can be enlightening yet simultaneously all-consuming. It’s a difficult headspace to come out of. But with ZIRP!, DIIV is having fun again.
DIIV Announce New Album, Vocalist Discusses Their Made-Up Genre
So what is the New Alternative all about then? This tongue-in-cheek genre that DIIV created draws from several inspirational wells, as their music often does. Zachary Cole Smith cited the Margaret Thatcher-era slogan “There is no alternative”, alongside Mark Fisher’s 2009 book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?. The conceptual new album, essentially, rejects the idea of there being “no alternative” to capitalism.
“I really want to reclaim that word,” Smith explained. “There is an alternative to capitalism.”
Perhaps where Frog in Boiling Water languished in the doldrums of late-stage capitalism, ZIRP! is rising from the sludge at the bottom of the pot and is ready to kick some ass. In that vein, Smith shared his dream of an entire music streaming library that would be publicly owned. Just one part of the new alternative puzzle.
“I do feel that [Spotify] absolutely should not exist and should be dismantled,” said Smith. “For Spotify, [music] is just fodder in their ecosystem. They’re selling tech. Apple is a company that’s selling phones. And music is this resource that they can pillage and plunder.”
So far, Smith’s ideas for a New Alternative don’t quite have legs yet. Right now, he explained his main hope for the concept was a break from “some kind of norm.” It doesn’t extend beyond that just yet. Maybe it never will. But as long as there’s a global need to “throw the billionaires screaming in an alligator pit”, the dream will never die.
Photo by Roberto Panucci – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
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