I am Dive at 2016 Canadian Music Week

With their newest album Wolves, Esteban Ruiz and José A. Pérez consolidate one of the most exciting projects appeared in Spain in this decade.

The following is a review by Gustavo Iglesias in Hoy Empieza Todo, from Spanish National Radio (RNE – Radio3):

I am Dive have released a new album, an event that has become happily usual in these last four years, while the band has put out a brilliant bunch of EPs, singles and remixes. But this time it is a proper LP we are getting, the second of its kind after their glorious Ghostwoods (2012). Wolves is more a new stage on their travel than a second episode on their discography; a new stage because you cannot forget such important releases as Driftwood (2013) or Plane Windows (2014), both released in between albums. And it is by knowing this work rhythm that you can better understand the moment I am Dive have now reached. With Wolves, Esteban Ruiz and José A. Pérez consolidate one of the most exciting projects in Spain in this decade. 

I am Dive have always found its North in searching, and pretty much always finding, emotion –their biggest achievement. But do not be fooled and think emotion equals listlessness… Wolves gnashes its teeth. Tracks such as Black Times in which the band sounds almost metallic and, actually, dance-floor-ready; Backwards, built over dirty beats that would perfectly suit a hip-hop production, or Transfixed towering above the rest, where the band goes wild with voices, guitars and synthesizers that could almost be described as dark and furious, adding an extra punch of forcefulness hitherto unknown in I am Dive –a plus pointing the way to an unpredictable future, full of possibilities and promises of renewed emotions. 

Maybe that future could be quite near, given their pace recording new music and those last three songs in Wolves; knowing that in the present tense of I am Dive acoustic guitars have given the room to synthesizers, it is now clear that the soundscaping the band delivers with this record takes them far from their so called bucolism and brings them into a much urban environment. Wolves has electric dreams too. Wolves offers, besides, a much closer version to the powerful sound the band is able to deliver live, something not too many people know, yet an experience full of intensity, and euphoria, not so contained. Moreover, some words to the lead singer’s voice that seem to have come now closer to our ears to be listened to in a much clearer, more direct way; adding proximity, humanity and an almost soul-ish accent, specially noticeable in Falling, or in the single The Lower You Fall. 

Wolves is all that, and most importantly, it is an album that brings ten new songs by I am Dive.

Showtimes

• On Thursday, May 5 at 10 pm at The Piston, 937 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M6H 1L4. Buy tickets.
• On Saturday, May 7 at 9 pm at Handlebar, 159 Augusta Ave, Toronto, ON M5T 2L4. Buy tickets.