Divorce - Drive To Goldenhammer

Putting Nottingham on the nation’s musical map in a way the city has long deserved, ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ - the debut full-length from local quartet Divorce - is a journey in far more than just name. Situated somewhere between nostalgia and anticipation, reality and fiction, its 12 tracks speak of a band who won’t - or simply can’t - be tied down to either sound or locale, preferring instead to make transatlantic pit-stops in contemporary folk (the wistful fiddle of opener ‘Antarctica’ and ‘Old Broken String’); jagged alt-pop (the St Vincent swagger of ‘Where Do You Go’); rousing heartland rock (see ‘Lord’’s crescendoing outro or ‘All My Freaks’’ freewheeling euphoria); and even skittish electronics (courtesy of curveball highlight ‘Pill’). 

The lynchpin of such a smorgasbord approach, then, is the undeniable warmth that imbues its each and every moment; whether co-songwriters and co-vocalists Tiger Cohen-Towell and Felix Mackenzie-Barrow turn their lyrical gaze to queer identity or music industry egos, they do so with humour and heart, casting their native East Midlands in shades of sumptuous, sun-soaked harmony. Here, the more overtly country flavour of the band’s two early EPs (2022’s ‘Get Mean’ and 2023’s ‘Heady Metal’) is a mere jumping off point for the full scope of their ambitions, and the result is a dynamic, difficult-to-predict listen that gently but deftly rebuts anyone who thinks they already know what Divorce are all about.