Diyet & The Love Soldiers have stripped back their 2025 album of the same name to the bare bones, releasing an acoustic EP featuring the five most heart-wrenching songs.
For those who haven’t listened to the original album, it’s a nine-track Americana-inspired journey through lead singer Diyet’s upbringing. An Indigenous woman navigating two worlds. Sweeping landscapes, cultural tensions, and hard-won hope all find their way into songs exploring wildness, truth, reconciliation, and community.
For this edition, Diyet chose only the most poignant songs. The tracks list includes the pleading ‘Give Me a Reason’, the raw ‘Running through the Great Divide’, and more. Felled with a tight stitch, you wouldn’t even know the tracks are supposed to be part of a larger blanket of stories.
The EP does an impressive job of painting a picture of and reflecting on the idea of forced assimilation without preaching. By opening with ‘Give Me a Reason’, Diyet invites us into the conversation and allows us to connect over shared confusion.
There is a tension and a giddy rage that is barely contained, and it ebbs and flows in all communities and in all countries – we all feel it. How can we help each other to stand up, speak with good intentions, show compassion and build a wave so strong that we turn the tides? I’m open to suggestions.
As the EP continues, she offers a window into her personal turmoil over the matter. Tackling the generational trauma that has trickled its way into her own life, she attempts to give a voice to those who were voiceless in years past. The second track, ‘8th Wonder’, confronts the ugly truth of Western history with a quiet anger. Delicately laid instruments contrast with the harsh reality of the lyrics. The dissonance makes the song all the more powerful, leaving a lasting impression long after the final note has played.
The EP really hits its stride with the third song, ‘Running Through the Great Divide’. The track serves as the midpoint of our journey in the album, both in terms of time and narrative arc. We are exposed to the struggle of isolation before being given the gift of understanding that exposing our confines is the only way to truly be rid of them. The track is the boldest sound of the EP to that point, giving it the punch it needs to spur us onward.
The final two tracks, ‘Still’ and ‘Grandfather’s Country’, provide a hopeful message to end the story. The wild tears that plagued Diyet in “Running Through the Great Divide” have been soothed into a stillness. She rejoices, “This is living”, and it feels like an exhale throughout the generations.
‘Grandfather’s Country’ serves as the powerful footnote to the EP. A direct retort to the earlier laments in ‘8th Wonder’, Diyet stamps her feet and declares what she knows to be true – that this land is her grandfather’s country. It’s the type of ending that befits this EP and allows the listener to set down the track with some heart intact.
This EP is a triumph in storytelling. Allowing the listener into the rawest parts of Diyet’s emotions and giving them permission to feel alongside her.
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