Diet Cig's Sophomore Release was ‘Worth the Wait’
By Erin Christie
Diet Cig’s Alex Luciano and Noah Bowman are a pairing as vital as peanut butter and jelly: they’ve been around for a while and haven’t wavered in their excellence. The band’s long-awaited sophomore record, Do You Wonder About Me?, is finally out today (via Frenchkiss Records) and it warrants a few flying kicks in Luciano fashion.
PC: Emily Dubin
Since the band’s genesis, Diet Cig has been churning out spunky, pop-infused anthem after anthem and this record contains another handful of them. Luciano’s sugar-sweet vocals have consistently been a key to Diet Cig’s distinctiveness and combined with Bowman’s effortlessly cool demeanor behind the kit, the pair make for a dynamic duo unlike any other. On this record, in particular, they have reached a high point, culminating in a combined effort that includes some of their strongest tracks to date.
This is immediately evident with the record’s opening track, on which Luciano quips, “I’m thriving, thanks for asking.” Her words are strong and sure, as if she’s achieved some sense of closure and relief after some kind of tumultuous event.
That same confidence persists throughout this record, namely with “Who Are You,” a cutting track that shoves an apology back in the face of the jerk that’s attempting to make amends. It opens with isolated vocals and hand-claps, a perfect opportunity for the crowd to join in when played in a live setting. Funneling into its lyrical content, Luciano remarks that her moon is in cancer (I feel you, girl), and that she wishes she was a better slow dancer—two things are for sure via this line alone: she damn sure knows how to rhyme and how to shove gross boys into the dirt, and this song is a prime example of such.
In line with the album’s first two tracks, this record expresses progression toward healing (as it deals with internal turmoil from self-doubt to self-love) in a way that feels overwhelmingly comforting. Throughout, you can find yourself nodding along not only due to the beat, but also because you find yourself relating to the material, from its more headstrong moments to even the more existential.
“Night Terrors,” for example, channels Luciano’s real-life experience with the phenomenon as she describes in an interview with DIY. On a deeper level, though, Luciano’s night terrors represent something more poignant and all-encompassing: “The idea also represents the fact that, no matter how hard I try to curate a specific, perfect version of myself, the embarrassing, weird, unlikable parts are always going to be there too,” she continues.
For Luciano, she worries that her “night terrors,” this little-known minor about her, might scare the people she loves away. As the track later expresses, though, she has no reason to worry in regards to people that truly love her: “This song’s about holding onto hope that the real ones will like me even with all my weird, freaky stuff underneath,” Luciano says. That’s a really important thing for all of us to remember: that no matter what, we’re worthy of love, and that’s true even if we sometimes experience bizarre sleep activity.
This idea speaks directly to a later track, “Flash Flood,” a track that exhibits frantic, frenzied guitar. In distorted, staticky vocals, Luciano says, “I’ll scream it from the rooftop / That I am worthy of love,” and she’s right!
Continuing this record’s trend of inner monologue, “Broken Body”—which unfolds with aggressive chords and reverb—discusses the all-too-real insecurities that come with feeling as though you aren’t good enough. With lines such as “I can’t remember the last time I felt good inside my head” and “If my body’s broken, does this mean I’m broken too?,” Luciano speaks candidly on her emotional struggles in a way that makes the listener feel as though they’re not alone. As the track dissolves into a breakdown toward the back end, too, it presents the perfect opportunity for letting your hair down as a means to help yourself cope with whatever ails you. That is the record’s hidden charm: its ability to blend earth-shattering vulnerability with shimmy-inducing hooks.
“Worth the Wait” continues this sense of self-reflection. With this track, Luciano speaks about a fear that hits super close to home: the worry that everyone around you is placing you under a magnifying lens and criticizing everything you do. As she says, it’s likely that “everyone’s too busy in this big city” to be paying attention to her every movement, but it’s tough to try to balance being rational with an overwhelming sense of paranoia—especially if you’re someone like Luciano who has at least a little limelight shed on them.
As she continues, she just wants to take care of her friends, her plants, and herself, but, unfortunately, she’s just as concerned with how other people perceive her as the rest of us. It’s a damn tricky and annoying thing, being perceived! However, when you find people that you feel like you can truly be yourself around—that you don’t mind being perceived by—that’s when you’ve hit the jackpot (drawing back to the ideas presented by “Night Terrors”). Those sorts of connections are “worth waiting for” and are truly such a validating thing.
With ideas concerning surrounding yourself with love, Do You Wonder About Me? doesn’t stray from the sweetness that Diet Cig is known for. Tracks such as “Makeout (Interlude)” and “Priority Mail” take a break from the record’s harsher melodies and sprinkle little instances of romance into the tracklisting. Each song is reminiscent of former Diet Cig love-lorn hits such as “Apricots” in the sense that they’re simple, sweet, and lovey-dovey as hell.
A final instance of this heart-warming feel is one of my personal favorite inclusions, “Staring Into the Sun.” Chiming in with jovial instrumentation, this track exhibits a light, bouncy air. Luciano sings with a certain sense of self-assuredness—she expresses that she’s tired of being the cause of her own turmoil (as in, blinding herself via the sun) and that she is attempting to find personal growth. This track ends the record on a particularly high (and super catchy) note in the sense that it ties everything up with a bow: here, Luciano is seen taking the lessons that she’s learned throughout the record’s runtime—that she deserves better than half-apologies, that she’s worthy of love, that her flaws aren’t a bad thing—and has applied them in the vein of working toward self-love. It’s a beautiful thing to see!
Big Bud-clad and prepared to start a pushpit or two, Diet Cig is truly one of the strongest, most resilient duos in the scene right now. It’s great to see them making strides in this more vulnerable direction and it’s paid off massively considering how genuinely great this record is.
Diet Cig had a livestream listening party of the record yesterday — you can catch up on what you missed below!
Make sure to keep up with the band via their socials!