Album Review: Drive To Goldenhammer by Divorce

After a flurry of well-received EPs, and consistent 6Music support, Divorce have delivered a debut album that looks set to push them to the front of the next-big-thing queue. The Nottingham band are difficult to pigeonhole: across 12 tracks they marry country, pop, indie, and folk in a way that makes comparisons tricky. Live, it can sometimes feel like four different bands all playing at the same time.

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Divorce come out of the gate with a hell of a debut that makes them not only a band to watch, but a force to be reckoned with. Divorce's Drive to Goldenhammer is a shockingly realized debut that harkens back to the days when maximalist "indies" like Arcade Fire or The Decemberists rattled off excellence with athletic ease. The elevator pitch here is alt-country by way of garage rock -a description that does scan as a bit rote at this point- but the group's secret sauce is their willingness to experiment and sprint ahead with such a palpable sense of joy.

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Nottingham quartet leave quite the calling card with this confident and ambitious debut Divorce – Drive To Goldenhammer Divorce‘s debut album seems to have been a long time coming, especially for those in from the start. The quartet formed in Nottingham in 2021, and ever since then have built up a loyal following. Support slots with Everything Everything and Self Esteem helped to spread the word, and a succession of well-received EPs only cemented their reputation as a band to watch out for.

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You could argue this ad nauseum if you desired but Divorce do stand out from the crowd and as a result sound refreshingly unique on their debut album Drive to Goldenhammer. It's this approach that the band hope will impact most, on their own terms. The album's title alludes to an aspirational journey toward an imagined sanctuary. Guitarist and vocalist Felix Mackenzie-Barrow describes Goldenhammer as "a home that doesn't really exist," representing the band's collective pursuit of an idealised refuge beyond their immediate surroundings.

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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.

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