Having drummed up a buzz from two promising EPs in 2022 and 2023, Drive to Goldenhammer feels like Divorce’s coming-of-age moment, and comes with a maturity and cohesion not found on their previous work. The band have listed Belle & Sebastian and Queen as key influences, but the occasional wayward fiddles and elegant melodies recall recent Adrienne Lenker songs, or perhaps Black Country, New Road in their more cool-headed moments.
Surely the main draw of Divorce over those esteemed artists is the delightful vocal chemistry of co-vocalists Cohen-Towell and Felix Mackenzie-Barrow. Sonically, they’re a delicious match: Mackenzie-Barrow’s tenor rich and slightly gravelly, Cohen-Towel light and youthful, although capable of an almighty pop-punk belt when the song demands it. The pair have been writing songs together since they were teenagers, and you can tell in the dovetailing melodies of opener ‘Antarctica’, touchingly echoing each other with the words “I was made to love you”. The duo aren’t, as far as I can tell, actually in a relationship, but Drive to Goldenhammer’s plentiful male-female vocal duets give the record’s musings on love a certain completeness, like two sides of a relationship mirroring back their fears and hopes to each other. Tellingly, lyrics are expressed from the perspective of “we” almost as often as “I”.
Recorded over four seasons in an off-grid location in the Yorkshire Dales, Drive to Goldenhammer has an earthy, faintly nostalgic quality to it. It’s most clearly heard in the atmospheric accordion that opens ‘Old Broken String’ or on the shimmering, hook-packed ‘Hangman’, a song about Mackenzie-Barrow’s day job as a social care worker. Understated stunner ‘Parachuter’ contains a sighing chorus melody that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Phoebe Bridgers ballad. “Cry your eyes out, we’ll be leaving soon,” they sing nihilistically, the harmonies sounding simultaneously heavenly and desolate.
That said, Divorce are not ones to rest on their laurels. ‘Lord’ front-loads the album with a bulletproof power pop chorus that arrives like a bolt from the blue, whilst late highlight ‘Where Do You Go’ features a furious performance from Cohen-Towell, chastising an emotionally unavailable lover over a salvo of gilt-edged guitar hits. Glorious synthpop number ‘All My Freaks’ sees Cohen-Towell on more playful form, mocking the plight of indie musicians like herself on a glittery chorus so primed for this summer’s festivals you can practically hear the giant balloons and confetti descend over the adoring crowd.
Drive to Goldenhammer’s more ambitious moments aren’t always so successful, and that central idea of a quest towards Goldenhammer often feels lost in the noise. The Queen influences are clear in the dense composition of ‘Fever Pitch’, but the end result feels overwritten and somewhat aimless, whilst ‘Karen’ works it’s way up to a thrilling wall of sound and then bottles it with a strait-laced guitar solo. Much more intriguing is Cohen-Towell’s central opus ‘Pill’, which theatrically switches from psychedelic, innuendo-filled art rock to a poignant, piano-led memory of swinging from a bunk bed with a childhood friend. It’s the sort of unorthodox songwriting Divorce had no time for in their previous EPs, and ‘Pill’’s unpredictable switch lands an emotional sucker punch.
Perhaps even more so than the fictional nirvana of Goldenhammer, a sense of openness and emotionally vulnerability runs through almost every track on this record. “Loving you with open arms / Kissing you with open eyes,” the pair sing in cathartic unison on ‘Jet Show’, whilst Adam Peter-Smith’s guitar and Kasper Sandstrom’s drums sound endearingly rough around the edges. This honesty and degree of youthful naivety masks the shrewd songwriting that underlines Drive to Goldenhammer. Divorce may not have reached their musical paradise just yet, but with this gorgeous record they’re halfway there.