Following their hugely acclaimed ‘Heady Metal’ EP and tours with Everything Everything and Bombay Bicycle Club, Nottingham quartet Divorce are all set to release their debut album ‘Drive to Goldenhammer’ via Gravity/Capitol on 7 March 2025. Produced by Catherine Marks (boygenius, Wolf Alice, Foals), the record invites you to join the band in their fantasy location of Goldenhammer – an escapist dream from the hustle and bustle of real life.
Recent single ‘Antarctica’ opens the record with deliciously twee indie-pop stylings – and a declaration of romance: ‘I was made to love you’. ‘Lord’ continues in this vein but with a more inward-looking slant: ‘Lord, forgive me. You can try but I wouldn’t reason with me’. ‘Fever Pitch’ opens with harmonies that wouldn’t be out of place on an Efterklang record before regrets take over with the words ‘fuck myself’ being delivered against dense riffs and a more experimental tone: ‘I wish we didn’t want these things’.
‘Karen’ has a slower start as Divorce talk about an audience who ‘always face the band’ before then falling down a rabbit hole that’s seemingly soundtracked by Hope of the States-style post rock. ‘Jet Show’ is short, sweet and quirky with love at its core – ‘Loving you with open arms, kissing you with open eyes’ – while ‘Parachuter’ is a tender and nostalgic ode to togetherness: ‘If the weather stays alright, we can sleep outside all night, celebrate the way we made it through the worst days of our lives’.
6 Music playlist favorite ‘All My Freaks’ is a call-to-arms for anyone who feels like they’re looking in from the outside – albeit with added jet skis – and ‘Hangman’ is a slice of chamber pop that finds Divorce desperately trying to stop others getting wrapped up in something messy. ‘Pill’ offfers a Tori Amos-style breakdown amidst its fractured melodies and apologies: ‘Honestly, I put too much weight on you’. ‘Old Broken String’ heads into a baroque direction with loneliness front and center before the penultimate ‘Where Do You Go’ combines a ‘Masseduction’-era St. Vincent sound with glam-tinged art rock: ‘I’m just an ordinary person, I don’t feel good about every single action’.
The album comes to an end with ‘Mercy’, an acoustic and heartfelt ditty that mentions heavy metal drummers, pleads for love and offers solace in even the darkest moments: ‘There’s blood on the wall. I will help you clean it all’.
‘Drive to Goldenhammer’ is a journey you’ll want to hitch a lift on…
